


Rosalee's Journey

by GreenGoth



Series: The Monrosalee Chronicles [6]
Category: Grimm (TV)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-04-21 10:22:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 70,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14282841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenGoth/pseuds/GreenGoth
Summary: Expanding Rosalee's backstory, weaving it in with events and scenes from the Grimm series.For someone with her traumatic background, she changed her mind pretty fast about staying on in Portland and keeping the Spice Shop running, after her brittle & hostile attitude when she first arrives. She could have returned to Seattle while waiting for the murder trial to begin, but chose instead to stay...why?  What all happened that we didn't see?  This also explores her relationship with her brother Freddy, and who Freddy was outside the Shop...and how a kehrseite might be in a long, close friendship with a Wesen and never know it.The first two chapters follow her through the ordeal of dealing with Freddy's murder, her own violent encounters with the Skalengecks, her Jay-addicted past...and her early encounters with Monroe beyond the scenes in the show.  By Chapter 6 we are at the Season 1/2 bridge, Rosalee trying to stop the worst damage from the cat scratch potion Adalind inflicted on Juliette; what went on BTS with all that?





	1. Rosalee's Journey Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> In order to fill in Rosalee's backstory, I've included a few necessary scenes from the Grimm episodes to weave the story together. Those scenes and everything else that pertains to the legal ownership and rights to the Grimm TV show of course belong to its amazing creators, not to me. I just love to play with what they gave us!

**Rosalee’s Journey**

**Chapter One**

 

“Rosalee Calvert?”

“Yes?” She didn’t recognize the phone number or know this man’s voice.

“This is Detective Burkhardt from the Portland Police Department. Ah…you have a brother, Frederick Calvert?”

Rosalee’s gut seized with dread. “Yes…” _What had happened to Freddy? What kind of trouble had he gotten into? Or worse…no, please, please no…._

“Ms. Calvert, I’m very sorry, but your brother was killed in a robbery at his shop this morning. You’re on record as his next of kin.”

_No no no no no…._ Rosalee felt dizzy, as if the earth had opened up beneath her feet and she was falling down a bottomless shaft into endless darkness. In her shock, her world shattered, she was deaf to whatever the caller said next.

“Ms. Calvert? Are you there?”

Struggling to speak, she sank onto the tall stool behind the pharmacy counter, tears spilling from her unseeing eyes. “I…I…what did you say?”

“Your brother was killed this morning. We’re investigating his murder.” Nick spoke slowly and deliberately, knowing all too well that the next of kin in these situations were often so devastated by their sudden loss that they were not thinking or hearing clearly. “We understand you’re in Seattle; could you possibly come to Portland right away to help us answer some questions and, ah, take custody of his body?”

“Yes, I’ll…I’ll get there as fast as I can. I don’t have a car, I’ll have to see if I can get a flight, or a bus, or…something…” She realized she was babbling and stopped, eyes shut tight against the shock and horror of this news.

“Do you have something to write on?” Nick asked gently. “I’ll give you the precinct’s address. His shop is an active crime scene, so please don’t go there first.”

“Oh…okay.” She groped around blindly on the counter behind the security glass windows to find a pen and notepad. “Okay…”

Nick told her the address and had her repeat it to make sure the distressed woman had taken it down correctly. “When you come into the lobby ask for me at the security desk; I’m in Robbery-Homicide upstairs. They’ll bring you to our office.”

“I’m afraid it may be late, I’m not sure when I’ll get there….”

“Most likely I’ll be here; if not they can reach me and I’ll meet you at the precinct, or you can speak with my partner Hank Griffin.”

Almost robotically Rosalee wrote that name under Detective Burkhardt’s and the address.

“Thank you, Ms. Calvert. And, I am sincerely sorry for your loss.”

The call ended and Rosalee sat in stunned silence, the phone nearly slipping from her hand.

“Rosalee?” The pharmacist, a lean man with close-cropped hair and wearing a white coat, stood beside her and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “What’s happened? Are you all right?”

She shook her head violently, fresh tears spurting through her lashes. “Freddy’s dead!”

“What? No!” Her boss _woged_ briefly in shock, revealing his smooth scaly Lausenschlange features; his grip tightened on her shoulder through her blue smock. “What happened?”

“A detective just called me; he was murdered at the shop…this morning. I…I have to go to Portland. I have to leave now; I’m sorry…”

“Of course you do. We’ll cover for you; don’t worry about your shifts. Call me when you know what’s going on, when you’ll be back…and if there’s anything, _anything_ we can do….”

Karel Sisinski had known Freddy, and his parents, for decades, all of them part of the secretive network of apothecaries who cared for the special needs of their Wesen communities. He had taken Rosalee on as a pharmacy tech in his “specialty” compounding pharmacy after she graduated from rehab, clean and sober from her former devastating years of Jay addiction.

“I need to go home, pack a few things…I have no idea how long I’ll have to be there.” Her eyes unfocused, her screaming mind was having trouble concentrating on details. “I’ll stay at Freddy’s, I have a key.”

“Let me get someone to drive you home and to the airport,” Karel said. “You’re in no state to be taking the bus right now.”

“Thank you…” She reached up to lay a grateful hand over his on her shoulder. “I’m just…I can barely…”

“We have to take care of each other.” It was his mantra, his deep belief that led him to work with the Wesen drug rehab and _wieder_ programs to help their fallen compatriots rebuild and reestablish their lives mainstreaming in the larger kehrseite community. “Can you afford a flight to Portland?”

“I don’t know, I’m not sure. I always take the bus at Thanksgiving.” She was shaking her head in confusion and distress.

“Then don’t worry about that. I’ll book you a flight while you go pick up your things. I’ll text you the details and the confirmation number.”

“Oh, Karel…” She turned and buried her face in his lab coat, clinging to her mentor and friend. “Thank you…”

He held her gently as if she were a frightened child, all too aware of how fragile she still was.

“I’m not sure I can do this.” Her strained voice was muffled against his coat. “But I have to, for Freddy.”

“Yes. Yes, you do. But remember you’re not alone. We’re here for you, in every way we can be.” He pulled a tissue from a box on the counter and pressed it into her hand. “Now, wipe your face, go get your purse and I’ll ask Gillian to take you home and to the airport.”

 

From there it was a blur, rushing into her third floor studio apartment while Gillian circled the block – there was never any curb parking in this over-populated neighborhood. She stuffed her small carry-on bag with a few changes of clothes and essential toiletries, almost forgetting her phone charger, and barely remembered to lock the door on the cluttered rooms in her headlong rush back down to the street.

Gillian, a reserved and compassionate Scharfblicke, not only drove her to SeaTac but went with her as far as the security check-in to make sure she had everything she needed to board her flight.

By the time Rosalee landed at PDX and caught a cab to the Central Precinct, the seething turmoil within her had chilled and hardened at this latest cruel blow in her already tough life. Wrapped in her blue and gray plaid coat and thick muffler against the chill air, she felt made of ice or cold glass as she made her way up the stairway from the street to the double glass doors into the precinct.

She hesitated a moment before going in; her past experiences of police facilities were far from pleasant. But she’d served her time and paid her so-called debts to society, and had finally managed to put those dark times behind her. This was for Freddy.

Summoning her courage and her will, she pushed through the doors and asked at the front desk for Detective Burkhardt. “He’s expecting me.”

In minutes a dapper Asian uniformed cop came to collect her. “I’m Sergeant Wu. I’ll take you up. I’m very sorry about your…situation.” He gave her a swift assessing look, recognizing the strained demeanor of someone barely holding herself together in tragic circumstances

“Thank you.” She followed him up flights of stairs and through a maze of corridors and then into the open, desk-filled space of the Robbery Homicide Division’s “bullpen”. He led her to two men whose desks met at right angles to each other.

“Detectives Burkhardt, Griffin,” Wu introduced, indicating who was who with a quick gesture. “This is Rosalee Calvert.”

The African American detective, Griffin, a handsome and well-groomed man of about forty, rose to offer her a chair by their desks while Burkhardt, seated, said, “I’m sorry you had to come down here under these circumstances.” His blue eyes were sincere but he was all business.

“Please, sit down,” Hank said with sympathy.

Rosalee stood where she was while Hank returned to his chair. Filled with cold fury, she asked sharply, “Who killed him?”

“We don’t know yet,” Hank told her.

“What _do_ you know?” she demanded.

Both looked up at her tone of voice.

“He was killed in an apparent robbery,” Nick said. “Since no money was taken, we assume they were after something in the shop.” She regarded him darkly, and he went on. “He was able to set off the emergency alarm, so, we don’t know if they got whatever they were after.”

“What do you know about your brother’s business?” Hank asked.

She shot back, borderline hostile, “He sold tea, spices and herbs. Not very complicated. My brother didn’t have any enemies that I know of. Is that your next question?”

At her confrontational tone, Hank and Nick exchanged glances.

“Do you know if your brother was dealing in anything illegal?” Nick asked.

“No! I saw him once a year and I spoke to him mostly on the phone. I want to bury him.” At that flat statement, her voice nearly broke and she marshaled her control. “Are we through? I want to close up his shop and I want to go home. So what do I have to do to get that done?”

While she spoke, Hank took a call, then told Nick, “Lab reports are in.”

“I’d like to go to the shop,” Rosalee said bluntly. “Can I do that?”

“Well, we are done with our investigation, but one of us will have to go with you until we know Forensics are done,” Nick said. At Hank’s nod, Nick got up to escort their vic’s sister to the scene of his death.

 

They rode in silence in the detective’s Toyota Land Cruiser, Rosalee steeling herself against her grief and the tumultuous feelings she always had re-entering her family’s Spice Shop. The trip was mercifully, or unmercifully brief – she wasn’t sure which.

When they arrived, Nick noted that the yellow crime scene tape was gone and no one from CSU was still around. He parked facing north on the one-way street and got out, his passenger emerging on the traffic side. She looked up at Exotic Spice and Tea with obvious foreboding. Then she reached into her purse for the keys; he noted that she had her own set and didn’t need the ones he’d brought along.

She unlocked the front door and entered, looking warily around with Nick close behind her. The layered oriental rugs muffled their footsteps on the old wooden floors. She’d barely walked into the main shop area when her gaze fell on the bloodstained rug where her brother had fallen and died.

Her brittle demeanor crumbling, she fell to her hands and knees by the bloodstains, overcome by her grief and loss. She didn’t even try to restrain the first-stage _woge_ that overcame her.

Standing behind her, Nick was saying, “We don’t know if that’s all your brother’s blood. He might have taken a bite out of his killer.” He was not surprised to see her Fuchsbau _woge_ in her obvious distress; of course, she was Freddy Calvert’s sister.

But at his statement, she looked back over her shoulder and met his black void eyes, her shock visible when she realized he could see her for what she was – _he was a Grimm_ , and she was alone and helpless with him.

Rosalee leapt to her feet, _woge_ fading, heart pounding in her ears and her breath coming in shuddering gasps, and backed away as far and as fast as she could, for all the good that would do. Her instincts and terror would allow nothing less.

Nick held up his hands, watching her fearful reaction. “I didn’t hurt your brother – I’m not going to hurt you.”

She stared at him, taking shuddering, panicked breaths.

“Do you know anything,” Nick asked, taking a tentative step toward her, only to see her quickly back away, “about gallenblase? Human gallbladder…”

“I know what it is,” she snapped.

“Did you know your brother was dealing?”

After a long pause she said, “No.” Her voice inside her head was screaming, _I’m talking to a Grimm…about Freddy dealing in human organs! This has to be the Grimm Freddy warned me about…._

“He was being supplied by Geiers.”

No huge surprise there, but it raised a dark possibility. Freddy had told her about that horrific venture gone wrong and warned her to stay in Seattle this Thanksgiving; between that and the Grimm, Portland was too dangerous now. Her voice edged with suspicion, she asked, “Is that who killed him?”

Nick carefully leaned back against a wooden column, his voice and body language trying to deescalate the situation. “That was my first thought.” He shrugged. “But I think whoever killed him was after something else.”

Her brows furrowed. “What?”

“I was hoping you could tell me.”

“I have no idea what he has in here.” But responding to his non-aggressive posture and tone, she added cautiously, “but I’ll look.”

The Grimm’s phone rang and he took the call, obviously talking to his partner. With her acute Fuchsbau hearing, even _unwoged_ , she could make out Hank Griffin’s voice telling Burkhardt that the lab reports revealed “big, fat, nothing”. A few of the shop’s wares were poisonous but they’d found nothing illegal. “You got anything?”

“Not yet.” Nick looked over at Rosalee, who was standing tensely but her breathing was nearly back to normal. “I think the sister’s clean. I’m coming back.” He clicked off his phone and pulled out one of his business cards, approaching her slowly as if she were a frightened wild animal about to bolt.

“If you can think of anything…or if you need anything, just…” he extended his arm, only moving close enough to press his card into her reluctant hand, “Just call me.”

She stood there a moment in silence holding his card, defensive, wary. Then she managed, “You’re not at _all_ what I expected.”

“Yeah.” He got that a lot these days.

“If you find _anything_ ….” It was both demanding and pleading.

“I’ll call you,” Nick promised.

And then he was gone.

Alone now, her shock at facing a real-life Grimm fading, she stood in the shop where she’d grown up, a place that held so many memories, good and bad. Looking at her beloved brother’s life blood drying in darkening stains on a rug, her grief overcame her.

Her eyes closed and the tears came, racking her body in shuddering sobs as her heart broke for Freddy and all she’d lost with him. Softly she swore, “Damn….” and gave herself over for a while to tears and anguish.

 

When she was drained of tears, she went to the small bathroom behind the door marked “Private” to splash water on her swollen eyes and blow her nose, trying to regain some semblance of composure. Numb for the moment, she wandered through the shop, seeing nothing unusual…that is, for a place that specialized in the unusual. But there was nothing on the shelves or in the treatment room with its cot and work table off the main shop that she didn’t recognize, or know their uses.

As the afternoon wore on, she decided to take her travel bag to Freddy’s place. There was little more she could do at the shop today…and she couldn’t face dealing with that bloodied carpet yet.

She caught a bus to the nearby urban neighborhood of Craftsman and Victorian homes where Freddy had rented a downstairs duplex apartment for what felt like decades. Hoping she wouldn’t run into his landlord, the upstairs neighbor, and have to tell him her terrible news, she quietly unlocked the front door and slipped inside, drawing the blinds down over its glass.

She turned to face the comfortably cluttered rooms and nearly broke down again.

Freddy would never come home to this place again; he’d walked out that very morning heading off to work, just as he’d done thousands of times over the years, with no clue that he would be gunned down and die in his shop a few hours later.

He was her lifeline, the last person on this earth who truly loved and cared for her. Now he was gone, and she was drowning.

His presence was everywhere in the cozy apartment. So many signs that he’d only meant to be away for the day – a book left open on the dining room table where he’d had his breakfast, the empty coffee mug still there; the cookware and dishes he’d used this morning left in the sink to be washed with his dinner dishes later that evening.

She wandered through the so familiar place, numbed with pain and memories. She thought of all the Thanksgivings she’d spent here with him since her banishment to Seattle, sent away from the temptations of her former addict’s life here in the less savory districts of Portland and the lure of her acquaintances and connections who were still part of that life.

Once a year she would come here to see him and spend those three blessed days alone with Freddy celebrating “Turkey Day”, making a big dinner with all the trimmings for just the two of them on the feast day; then lounging around in their sweats and slippers the day after, binge-watching favorite movies and scarfing leftovers, talking about anything and everything except her lost years and the toll it had taken on her family, most particularly their father. They would spend Saturday together, too; then Sunday she’d board the bus back to Seattle and Freddy would reopen his shop.

There was always that one phone call on Thanksgiving Day from their mother, wishing he could be there in Medford with her and his other sister and the rest of their family, and asking tersely, “How is she?” meaning their prodigal Rosalee.

“She’s doing okay, Mom. I’ll tell her you say ‘hello’. Same to you and DeEtta from her.” He would look over at Rosalee when he said that, expecting her dark expression and the thin, tight line of her lips in response. “And love from me to everybody there celebrating in Medford. Yes, I’ll definitely see you at Christmas, if not before. Okay. Bye.”

“I’m sorry you have to miss all that because of me,” she would say, each year. His answer would always be to come over and wrap his arms around her, rocking her gently and tucking her head under his bearded chin, stroking her hair.

There was nothing else left to be said.

Freddy had kept trying to help her through relapse after relapse, arranging and paying for her last inpatient time in rehab himself; the rest of her family had given up in anger and despair, and cut her off.

And it was only when even Freddy, after her final lapse, had given his ultimatum, that she had managed to struggle through treatment and months, then years of sobriety at last.

_“Clean up, stay sober, or you’re dead to me.”_ His dark eyes fierce, face set in stone, he had confronted her up against the wall outside the Seattle jail having bailed her out for the last time for her thieving to get drug money.

She knew he had called on many friends and called in many favors to get her back into treatment for the notoriously hard to kick Jay addiction, and when she got out of rehab, he’d set her up in a job and halfway house, then an apartment to support her sober living. But she had lapsed again, taking up with a Waschbär in her sobriety support group, both of them dropping out of group and soon falling back into their self-destructive ways.

And she’d been caught again for shoplifting. At least this time it wasn’t a B&E. He’d driven her straight from her jail cell to rehab again, checked her in, and repeated his ultimatum.

_“You have got to stay straight this time. It’s not doing either of us any good to keep bailing you out and sending you for treatment over and over again. If you won’t commit and turn your life around, as much as I love you, I can’t let you drag me down with you. Get in there and fix yourself. This is your last chance.”_

The cold terror of his abandonment shocked her to her core. She’d used that terror to survive the ordeal of detox and rehab yet again, blessed that the court had given her probation as long as she stayed in treatment, and struggled back to a drug-free life, marginal as it was; this time she’d stayed clean for years.

Freddy had insisted that she stay in Seattle with her drug-free support system and pharmacy tech job under the watchful eyes of Karel Sicinski, and away from her temptations and bad history in Portland. She missed him terribly but understood and accepted his reasons. And as empty and unfulfilling as her life and work felt most of the time, she was painfully grateful to everyone who’d helped her and not given up. Especially Freddy.

It was too late to mend ties with the rest of her family. Her beloved though long-estranged father had died while she was in jail serving out one of her sentences for theft, not communicating with her family out of shame and knowing there’d be no sympathy from that quarter; no one knew where she was, not even Freddy.

She’d only found out about her father’s death on her release, and by then she’d missed his funeral. Her mother and sister were furious and even blamed her for his death, saying that because of her, he’d died of despair and a broken heart, and they refused to ever speak to her again.

That Thanksgiving, Freddy had taken her to George Calvert’s grave in Portland’s Lone Fir Cemetery to pay her belated respects.

The old cemetery was cold, wet and devoid of other people on that late November family feast day. The tall firs and cedars dripped rain off their drooping branches onto the fallen leaves and twigs underfoot. The deciduous trees stood like gray skeletons among the evergreens, their branches barren until next spring.

It was all suitably mournful and depressing for Rosalee as they walked through the wet grass to the cluster of plots where the Calverts and their kin were buried, generations since their families by blood and marriage had emigrated from England, Ireland and Holland. The fresh grave stood out among them, its grass newer and greener without the dense mat of roots and thatch covering the others.

She carried a bouquet of fall flowers, mostly chrysanthemums in dark gold, white and purple. They stood in silence for a few moments beside their father’s grave; then Freddy pulled a roll of clear plastic from his overcoat pocket and laid it over the sodden grass so she could kneel beside the marker without sinking into the muddy ground.

He always seemed to think of everything.

She knelt on the plastic sheet and leaned over to clear some faded flowers from the receptacle sunk at ground level beside the flat granite marker, replacing them with her own offering. The steady autumn rains had kept the vase filled with water. She made a small attempt to arrange the mums nicely, grouping the colors and spreading their dark green leaves to hold the stems in place.

Then she made herself look down at the engraved polished stone that bore her father’s name, the years that bracketed his life and the inscription, “Beloved by All, Healer of Many. Be at Rest and Peace.” There were carvings of several medicinal plants and flowers surrounding the edges of the monument.

“Oh, Daddy…” Her heart broke anew and she crumpled, leaning on one hand while she caressed the engraved flowers and the letters of his name. “I’m so sorry…I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. I loved you so much but I was so lost. So weak….”

Freddy had stood still beside her, letting her break down and weep, confess, and beg her father’s forgiveness. The grave, of course, was silent. George was gone from this earth, never knowing that she’d at last broken free of her addiction, hurt and anger; it was too late to reconcile in this life.

It was only when she’d cried herself out, kneeling in her raincoat with her cheek and both palms pressed to the marker on George’s grave, that Freddy had gently taken her shoulders, lifted her up on her feet and rocked her in his arms until she’d come to a place of stillness, if not peace, while pressed against his chest like the lost child that she was.

And now, she had to bury Freddy.

Coming back to the dreadful present, she looked around at his rooms. His presence was palpable, his personality, history, enthusiasms and just the everyday things that make up a life filling every corner of each room, even hanging from the ceilings in places.

Feeling like some kind of zombie, she went to the smaller bedroom that served as his office and guestroom, the room she occupied on her visits. Numbly she opened the middle drawer of his file cabinet and thumbed through the folders.

It was all there, of course. Last Will and Testament; Living Trust; Life Insurance; Funeral Arrangements. Before her third and final descent into addiction, he’d shown Rosalee where the files were and assured her that just in case, everything was all arranged and paid for, and that she was his sole beneficiary. Only if she passed first would his estate go to Gloria and DeEtta.

“They’ll be fine. Mom’s comfortably retired, and DeEtta’s got her husband and her hotshot sales rep job, as she so loves to remind everybody.” Their sister was still with her second husband then. “The shop will go to you along with whatever else I have at the time. If you can’t manage running it, I hope you’ll sell it to an apothecary who will…though that won’t be easy.”

“I don’t even want to think about that,” she’d told him, meaning most especially his death but also the very concept of going back into their family business again, especially alone.

But that time had come, and she had to deal with it. She couldn’t let Freddy down. The rest would have to wait until this was over.

With no appetite but knowing from her recovery program that she had to keep her strength up and her blood sugar level, particularly when under stress, she took a wedge of leftover chile relleno casserole from his fridge and zapped it in the microwave. She sat at the dining room table where he’d had his final meal and leafed through the folders, mindlessly eating the casserole and drinking a cup of ginger tea.

Everything was arranged, right down to the marker for his grave and what he wanted on it, the plot he’d reserved and paid for in their family’s section, and the music and readings he’d chosen for his funeral service. There was a list of old friends and distant relatives he wanted to make sure were notified. “Updated 1/12/11”, he’d penciled on the contact list.

“Ohhh, Freddy,” she whispered, tears welling up again when she’d thought she was completely drained.

While she washed her dishes and his, she was reminded again that he’d prepared that casserole with his own hands. It was the last food she’d ever eat that he had cooked.

Everywhere she looked, every memory sparked here in his home stabbed her heart afresh.

There was a light triple tap at the front door. It was dusk outside, the autumn night falling early. “Freddy, you there?”

It was Lionel Haynes, his longtime friend and landlord. Rosalee’s heart sank. She went to the door and opened it to let him in.

He was understandably surprised to see her. “Rosalee? You’re here? Not your usual visit…”

“Nothing’s usual, Lionel. Come in. Sit down.”

The kindly, eccentric man with his dark skin and salt-and-pepper hair studied her with troubled eyes. A few years older than Freddy, they’d been friends since high school – though Lionel knew nothing of Freddy’s secret other life, his Wesen side.

“Is Freddy still at the shop? He didn’t tell me you were coming to town.”

“No. No, he’s not.” She guided the worried man to the brown leather couch under the living room window and sat down with him. “Lionel – I got a call at work this morning…from the police. Freddy’s…Freddy’s dead.”

Lionel’s whiskered face went slack with shock. His hazel eyes stared into hers unblinking in disbelief. “No….” His voice was a soft whisper. “No, that can’t be right. I just saw him for coffee this morning. We were laughing over a stupid letter in the paper.”

That explained the extra coffee mug in the sink. Rosalee shook her head sadly. “I’m glad you got to see him this morning…and glad to hear that he was laughing. But he’s gone, Lionel. We’ve lost him.”

“What…what happened? Did he have a heart attack? He’s always been so healthy!”

“The police said he was shot during a robbery at the shop. I saw the bloodstains on a carpet when I got there but they’d already taken him away.”

“To a hospital?” Lionel asked, grasping in denial.

“No. He’d set off the alarm; he was dead when the police got there.”

Tears welled in Lionel’s eyes; his hands were shaking, and Rosalee impulsively took them between her own.

“But why? Why would anyone rob the Spice Shop? He never had much cash there, just enough to make change during the day.”

Rosalee decided not to tell him that no money was taken; the news was hard enough without adding that complication. “They’ve just started investigating. They called me as next of kin, so I’m here to help however I can…and to take care of Freddy’s affairs. You don’t mind if I stay here while I’m…doing that?”

“No, no, of course not! Stay as long as you need to.” His head down now, he leaned his arms on his thighs, Rosalee still holding his hands. “I can’t believe it. Not Freddy….”

“I can’t believe it either. Part of me keeps expecting him to come through that door, look at me in surprise and ask what I’m doing here. But it’s not going to happen.”

“Have you…seen him yet?”

“Not yet. I guess I’ll have that to look forward to tomorrow. They know it’s him; they’re not waiting for an ID.”

“Do you want me to come with you?” His teary eyes met hers again, trying to be brave for her.

“I…I don’t know yet. Will you be home tomorrow?”

“I’ll be here for you whenever you need me. Oh, Rosie…how _you_ must be feeling right now. I’m so, so sorry.”

He leaned in to hug her and she silently forgave him for using her old childhood nickname, now banished for its sordid association with her years on the streets where she was widely known by that name. After a long moment they patted each other’s backs and separated, sitting and grieving together.

“Did you eat?” Lionel asked when he could speak again.

“Yes, I had some casserole Freddy left in the fridge, but thank you.”

“Can I get you anything? Do anything?” He was almost desperate to help in some way.

Rosalee thought for a moment. “Actually, yes. Could you give me a ride back to the shop? There’re a few things I still need to do tonight; I have no idea what all they’ll have me tied up with tomorrow.”

“Of course, of course. Do you want me to come in and help?”

“I don’t know. I’ll figure that out when we get there.”

It was a sad, solemn drive back to the edge of Chinatown.

 

The strings of bells chimed when she opened the door, the achingly familiar sound echoing through the empty shop. When she flicked on the lights, she realized too late that now Lionel would also see the bloody carpet where Freddy had died.

But by then his dear friend was standing, stunned, where she had this afternoon just before, in her grief, her _woge_ had revealed her to Portland’s Grimm. She shivered at the memory.

And, just as she had, Lionel sank to his hands and knees over the now-dried bloodstains, tears flowing silently and freely as the awful reality sank home.

“Freddy…” His voice broke and he could say no more, just shook his head while he took gasping breaths.

“That’s what got me, too,” she said softly. “I fell down there just like you did. It made this...all too real.”

“They have to find these monsters!” Lionel said, voice strained. “Have to find them and make them pay. Freddy only helped people; it was his passion in life. Why did they have to kill him?”

“I don’t know. The police don’t either. They’re piecing together what evidence they have right now.”

No longer able to hold back, Lionel began sobbing wordlessly. He brushed his fingertips over the stiff stained carpet. His shoulders shook and his head hung down between arms braced against the floor.

Rosalee watched, giving him space for the grief that radiated from his crouched body. After a while, she went behind the main counter for a box of tissues and set it down gently next to Lionel, kneeling beside him and resting her arm across his back.

When he was able, Lionel reached for a bunch of tissues and mopped his eyes and nose before sitting up where she could see his face. Both on their knees now, they looked at each other in shared grief.

“I loved him,” Lionel said simply. “I’ve loved him since we were kids, like brothers. Only better, because we chose each other. When I bought my place, I couldn’t wait to ask him if he’d move in downstairs. We both have… _had_ our own lives, needed our space, but we were so close. We saw each other nearly every day. We were such good friends….” He looked up and around the shop, now avoiding the carpet stains. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without him.”

“I don’t either, Lionel. I really don’t.”

After awhile when she was sure Lionel was composed enough to drive, she sent him home saying there really wasn’t anything that he could help with tonight; it was all to do with Freddy’s esoteric business which Lionel admitted he knew little about. He made her promise to call him when she was ready to come home so he could drive her back.

And thus she was alone in the closed dark shop, rolling a different carpet out to replace the stained one when she was startled by a knock on the front door. She was even more startled to see the Grimm again, this time with another man in tow.

Holding the door partway open, she looked the newcomer up and down. She didn’t read “cop” off of him. He stood behind the detective, tall with wavy dark hair and trimmed beard, prominent brow and unsettling brown eyes, bundled into a jacket against the damp chill.

“Another partner?” she said dubiously.

“Sort of,” Detective Burkhardt said. “Um – this is Monroe.” Just the one name. “Monroe, this is Rosalee Calvert.”

The tall man leaned in to shake her hand, eyes kind with sympathy. “I knew your brother. I’m sorry.”

When their eyes met and hands touched, her Wesen radar pinged. His scent was canid but she wasn’t sure what kind. _What was he doing here with a Grimm?_

“We need to get into the basement,” Burkhardt said without preamble.

“Do you need me to go with you?”

“No. Just a little follow-up.” They went past her toward the basement stairs, the Grimm knowing the way.

She watched them go, feeling closed and guarded, looking at this Monroe with suspicion as he passed by. She waited upstairs huddled in her gray cardigan, arms folded, and listened to them rustling around in the ransacked supplies while speaking in low voices. Without moving closer she couldn’t make out much of what they were saying, but it sounded like the Grimm was asking questions and his companion was answering.

At last she couldn’t stand there waiting and not listening any more. She went down the basement stairs where they stood amid the wreckage. The Grimm was holding a jar of lumpy yellow crystalline powder, a substance she recognized only too well.

“Did you find something?” she asked.

“Do you know of a drug called ‘Jay’?” Burkhardt asked.

After a long pause she admitted, “Yes.”

“Do you know if your brother was selling it?”

“Even if he was,” she said defensively, “it’s not illegal.”

“She’s right,” Monroe said. “That’s why you – you know, the _cop_ you? – have never heard of it.”

Burkhardt spoke to her directly. “I need to know everything in this basement that a Wesen would kill for.”

The word _Wesen_ coming from his mouth chilled her. “Will it help you find the men who killed my brother?” At this moment she wanted nothing more than to send this Grimm away to inflict his kind’s justice on Freddy’s killers.

“I hope so.”

“Then I’ll do it now.”

“Okay. I’ll call you later.” The detective started up the basement stairs.

But when Monroe moved to follow, she stared at him and boldly grabbed his upper arm as he came past her.

“You said you knew my brother?”

“Yes…?”

She _woged_ at him in challenge and he _woged_ in response.

_Blutbad._

They looked at each other a long moment, making low canid sounds as they took each other’s measure. Then she shook off her _woge_ and so did he.

Softly she said, “I just wanted to make sure.” Then seeing that Burkhardt had watched all this and come back down the stairs, she asked forthrightly, “So, they don’t know, do they?”

“Who?”

“The cops you work with. They don’t know who you are.”

The Grimm raised his eyebrows and shook his head. “No. Does it matter?”

She turned her inquisitor’s gaze back on Monroe, who regarded her warily. “I’m just trying to understand how…” She looked back at Burkhardt. “How... _this_ …works.”

“It’s, um – it’s a little complicated,” Monroe offered.

She stared back at him. “Yeah, I can see that. Just _find_ the men who killed my brother.” She stood watching them, confused, as they climbed the stairs and left together.

She was still down in the basement a short while later, using a box cutter to open cartons so she could identify their contents when she heard glass shatter and voices upstairs. A rank reptilian odor assaulted her nostrils and she instantly knew what she was up against.

The burglars wasted no time stomping toward and down the basement steps. She hid as best she could in the shadows between freestanding shelf units, clutching her box cutter and hoping they didn’t smell her.

Dangerous as they already were, the Skalengecks were brandishing guns as well; one was limping badly. She shrank further into the shadows.

“Why are the lights on?”

“Because someone forgot to turn them off. Let’s get the stuff and get the hell out of here.”

Of course, they were after the Jay. And they were almost certainly the same ones who’d robbed and killed Freddy, back for the rest of their haul. _Just take it; it doesn’t matter now_ , she thought silently. _Just take it and leave me alone; don’t find me here_.

But then her phone went off, alerting them that someone else was there. She silenced it instantly but the damage was done; now they were looking for her. She tried to sidle toward the stairs, hoping they’d be searching the other end of the basement, but she was quickly hemmed in by their leering _woged_ faces, eyes fixed on her, fangs bared and tongues flickering.

She made a frantic break for the stairs, tossing boxes into their path but one thrust his arms through the thin drywall along the stairway and grabbed her leg. Without thinking she stabbed his arm repeatedly with her box cutter until he howled in pain and released his grip. She leaped up the stairs and barred the basement doors behind her before fleeing the shop out into the dark and empty streets, running for her life toward Freddy’s place.

Her boots splashed through puddles on the sidewalks and crossings as she fled as fast as her legs and adrenaline could take her, listening for sounds of their pursuit. She darted down side streets, avoiding the brightly lit main routes through this part of town and at last, breathless and terrified, ran up the steps to Freddy’s front door, grateful she’d stuffed her keys in her pockets instead of in her jacket or purse left behind in her stampede to safety.

Trembling violently once she was locked behind the admittedly flimsy front door, she fumbled for the Grimm’s police business card and tapped his number into her phone.

“Yeah, Burkhardt.”

“It’s Rosalee. I was in the shop when two men broke in while I was there.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m…I’m fine.” Then admitted, “I’m scared.” She sank onto Freddy’s couch, anxiously rubbing her aching legs. “I’m fine, I got away. I’m at my brother’s house.”

Once satisfied that she was safe for the moment, he asked if she could identify her attackers.

“If I saw them again? Yes.” Their faces, human and Skalengeck, were branded in her memory.

He asked for her address and said he’d send officers over to pick her up and bring her to the precinct.

She’d just had time to look at her recent calls and realized it was Lionel’s call that alerted her attackers, when Lionel himself appeared outside the door.

“Rosalee, you in there? You okay? I thought I heard the door slam.”

She went to let him in, still trembling from shock and adrenaline. “The police are coming to get me. Two men broke into the shop while I was there – they have to be the same ones who killed Freddy. I barely got away and ran all the way here.”

“Oh, honey!” He wrapped her in his arms, trying to soothe and console her. “And I’d just called a short while ago to see if you were ready for that ride home.”

“Well, I’m here now but not for long. They’re taking me to see if I can help identify them. I don’t know when I’ll be back but I know they’ll bring me home. You should try to get some sleep.” She hugged him back.

Lionel stayed until a patrol cruiser pulled up, blue lights flashing, and a uniformed officer escorted Rosalee to the car.

 

The precinct bullpen was nearly empty at this time of night, just a few people on the overnight shift moving about, and Burkhardt sitting with Rosalee at his desk. He brought up booking photos of their two suspects on his computer screen: Clint Vickers and Joshua Hall. She ID’d them at once.

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.” She turned her gaze from the screen to the detective. “How do you do this?”

He started to explain about suspects’ last known addresses and questioning people who know them, but she interrupted. “I mean _you,_ as a cop. The people you work with have no idea?”

He looked around at the nearly empty, shadowy squad room. “Well, I do what I can do.”

She shook her head in wonder and a kind of understanding. “It’s not easy living two lives.” Then she looked away. “I suppose you checked into mine.”

“Next of kin are usually the first suspects. You were arrested a couple of times for breaking and entering?” Among other things, but he let that ride.

“A long time ago.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“Not really. I cleaned up my act.” She regarded him darkly. “So what’s there to do now?”

“Well, be careful,” he said needlessly, then added, “I’m going to have some officers take you back to your brother’s house and stay outside.”

He started to call someone for that but she interrupted. “What about your partner?”

Surprised, he put down the phone. “Hank?”

“No, the other one. I want someone I…have something in common with.”

Understanding, he picked up his desk phone and dialed another number.

 

Back in Freddy’s apartment, having reassured the anxious Lionel by phone that she was fine and under police protection, she waited for the “other partner” to arrive. When he did, he peered in through the blinds that hung over the front door’s window while he tapped on the door to get her attention.

When she opened it, he said, “Hi, Nick called. He…thought it’d be a good idea if I came over and, you know, kept an eye…”

“Thanks for coming.”

She let him in and he immediately turned to lock the door and close the blinds covering its glass.

“Can’t be too careful.”

“That’s why I wanted a Blutbad instead of a cop,” she told him directly. “The guys who came to the shop were Skalengecks.”

Monroe held his arms out from his sides. “Great.”

“You’ll be able to smell them a mile away.” She had great respect for the storied Blutbad sense of smell, even more sensitive than her own. Then briskly in their odd situation, she told this dangerous stranger, “There’s food in the fridge. You get the couch.”

He nodded, hands in his coat pockets. The couch was near the front door, a good place to keep watch…and she needed to put some distance and privacy between them.

“Good night,” she said, moving toward the hallway door and the bedrooms beyond.

“Good night.”

She retreated to the single daybed in Freddy’s office/guest room. She couldn’t bring herself to climb into the queen-sized antique brass bed in his room, the bed where he’d slept last night and all the nights and years before, on the sheets he’d spent his last night nestled in, never suspecting it was the final night of his life.

She undressed quickly, sharply aware of the strange Blutbad nearby in the living room, and pulled on yoga pants and a sleep shirt before sliding into the guest bed.

The narrow bed felt cold and unwelcoming, not cozy the way it had been when Freddy was in the next room. She lay on her side beneath the covers listening intently to all the sounds outside and the silence from the living room. After awhile the lights clicked off in the front rooms and she heard the leather couch scrunch as her guardian settled there for the night.

Her mind reeled at everything that had happened. _I can’t believe it’s come to this all in one day. Freddy murdered…a Grimm face to face…fighting my way free of Jay-addict Skalengecks…and now a Blutbad I’ve barely met, two rooms away from where I’m supposed to be sleeping._

She lay very still there and continued listening hard for any hint of danger, trying to block the horrors of the day from her mind, until finally she gave in to her exhaustion and fell into a mercifully dreamless sleep.

Out in the silent living room, Monroe accepted his abrupt dismissal by the recipient of his protection, recognizing in her a hard-won inner strength and resiliency now tested to the max by all that had just happened to her. He also recognized her as a damaged fellow traveler whose inner faults traversed her like Cascadia’s fractured geologic layers, older and far more complex than the traumas of today.

He sat up for awhile, silently cursing Nick for sucking him into another dangerous, unpredictable mess with no warning and no consideration for the cost to Monroe of all this time away from his own income-producing work and the disruption of his life and sanity-sustaining regimen. But at the same time he felt strangely honored that this hard and troubled woman had requested his presence instead of armed and seasoned human police officers.

Not that all of Portland’s uniformed protectors were human – far from it. He stifled a weary yawn as he wondered if Nick knew about that yet, as at some point inevitably he would. The Bauerschwein Peter Orson was hardly the only Wesen who’d served on the force.

As the night drifted on, he felt assured enough that no one was coming after Rosalee Calvert to lie down on the couch, stretching out as best he could, and try to get a little sleep before facing whatever was in store for the morning. He missed the comforting ticking and chimes of his myriad clocks at home.

It was strange to lie here in Freddy Calvert’s home surrounded by the Fuchsbau’s personal effects and guarding his grief- and violence-stricken sister – a man he’d barely known, at first from doing a sting operation on Freddy for Nick, buying the illicit and expensive gallenblase and handing it over on the street outside the shop for police testing, and later only through Calvert’s professional capacity as a customer at his shop.

Monroe had become curious about the man after Nick had let him go despite the Geier deal; he’d discretely asked around and discovered Freddy’s reputation as a stalwart pillar of the Wesen community who held their welfare and safety above all else. Over time he’d started filling some of his more unusual prescriptions there.

When fitful sleep finally took him, his dreams were troubled and filled with Skalengecks and Geiers.

 

Rosalee woke with a start early the next morning with the stark realization of where she was – and why. Tears trickled into the pillow before she could even think clearly, the upwelling of deep grief overcoming her.

There was so much to do. And after it was all done – nothing.

There was no life for her without Freddy.

Many people had been kind to her, helped her, even been friendly with her in the many years of her relapses and recovery. But as good as some had been to her, no one else truly loved her…only Freddy.

The future beyond his funeral and closing out his affairs as she’d promised was a bleak gray wall.

Knowing there was a Grimm on the hunt for his killers gave her an odd glimmer of hope that there would be some kind of justice – she prayed more violent and final than human justice. But even that would not bring her loving brother back.

The thought of her lonely existence in that cramped Seattle apartment and days spent counting pills and measuring powders to fill prescriptions at the pharmacy held little appeal, despite her gratitude to Freddy and Karel, Gillian and so many others who’d helped her claw her way back to life this far.

_I’ll deal with that when this is all over_ , she told herself firmly, and made herself roll out of bed and climb into a fresh shirt and jeans to face the day.

She moved with near silent Fuchsbau stealth from the guest room to the kitchen, glancing only briefly out through the hall at the long form of the Blutbad lying on the couch, apparently asleep under a knitted throw Freddy always kept there for chilly nights.

She made a pot of coffee, enough for two. Food of any kind was unappealing. She told herself she’d pick up something when she was ready; she knew several places around the shop where she could duck in later for a bite of…whatever.

For now, restless and unsettled, impatient for something to happen, she only wanted to get back to the shop in daylight and assess the damage, and reclaim her purse and jacket left behind in her escape. Thinking of all her life’s essentials in that purse, she hoped the Skalengecks hadn’t found and stolen it.

The coffee seemed to take forever to brew, though she knew it was only a few minutes. She listened a little anxiously for any stirring in the living room, hoping to avoid having to make awkward conversation before she could shed herself of her guard and make her escape from the apartment.

She finished her warmth-restoring cup and poured one for him, black, having no idea how he preferred it, and took it out to the living room where he slept on his side, flannel shirt cuffs unbuttoned and one sleeve pushed up to the crook of his elbow.

After a moment’s indecision, she reached down and lightly touched his sleeve to wake him.

He jolted awake _woging_ with a snarl and sprang up on the couch, growling as he looked quickly around for the threat. She leaned back and away, watching him and still holding the mug of hot coffee.

“Take it easy. It’s just me.”

He shook off his _woge_ and sank back on the couch cushions looking up at her. “Yeah, sorry, I…I can see that now.”

She reached down and carefully placed the mug on the coffee table close to him. “I really appreciate what you did. I’m going to go to the shop.” Then she turned abruptly, moving toward the front door.

“Excuse me? Do you think that’s a good idea?” he protested behind her.

“I have no intention of staying here any longer than I have to,” she said, meaning the apartment and Portland. “I’ve got a lot to take care of.”

“Ah, okay, could we just _slow down_ a second?” Monroe grabbed his phone and speed-dialed Nick, relieved when the Grimm answered promptly. “Rosalee says she’s going to the shop.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m still at her brother’s place. What do you want me to do?”

“Well, do you think you can talk her out of it?”

“No! She’s practically out the door!”

“Just stay with her. I’ll send someone over there.”

Monroe signed off as Rosalee said, “See ya,” and headed out into the morning. Gathering his coat, Monroe rushed after her calling out, “Hang on, hang on….”

 

About an hour later, Monroe stood by watching gloomily as Rosalee packed books, jars and bottles into boxes, gradually emptying the many cabinets and walls of shelves of their stock.

“It’s going to be sad to see this place close,” he told her. “There’s not that many places _we_ can go any more.”

“It’s not an easy business.” She kept packing, determined to get this over with as quickly as possible. She would have to find buyers for Freddy’s stock, hoping Karel’s pharmacy would want all or most of it.

“You were in it?”

“My parents were. They were apothecaries. I gave it a shot.”

Holding his arms out from his sides, Monroe asked, “And? What happened?”

Before she could answer, they were interrupted by Sergeant Wu’s arrival.

He was perspiring heavily despite the crisp fall morning, short of breath and his speech halting. “Hey…I’m supposed to, uh…come down here and, ah, make sure everything’s….”

Monroe reached out toward Wu who was weaving a bit on his feet. “You don’t look so good.” He glanced over at Rosalee who also looked concerned. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah…sure…never better,” Wu mumbled, just before he passed out and fell limply to the floor.

“Oh, my god…” Rosalee said, staring at Wu’s face as they went to crouch beside him. The sergeant’s face was erupting into huge yellow boils before their eyes.

His own eyes wide, Monroe couldn’t help echoing her. “Oh, my god!”

“This isn’t normal….human normal,” Rosalee said. She shook her head at her blatantly obvious remark. “I know, _duh_ , right?”

“I have no idea what this is,” Monroe said desperately. “I better call Nick right now.”

“We shouldn’t leave him on the floor like this. I’m going to clear off the front counter and you’re going to help me lift him up there.” Her mind was racing, trying to recall when she’d seen this before and what, if anything, could be done about it.

“Well…are you sure we should move him? Shouldn’t we 911-it, like, NOW?”

“I don’t think so. I’m trying to remember where I’ve seen this, and not just in a book. It was way back…and it’s a Wesen thing. Kehrseite doctors won’t have a clue.” She was rapidly removing office and packing supplies, a flat scale and a balance scale from the countertop. “Okay, let’s get him up here where I can have a closer look.”

Monroe started to shove both arms under the unconscious sergeant’s body but Rosalee rushed over to help.

“Let’s keep him as level as we can. I’ve got his head and shoulders.”

Still leery about what they were doing, Monroe lifted the bulk of Wu’s wiry frame while Rosalee supported his upper body. They laid him out gently on the countertop, his head resting on the end by the shop’s wall phone. Rosalee went to the treatment cot in the side room and brought back a brown blanket to cover their erstwhile patient.

Taking Wu’s head between gentle hands, she tilted his face from one side to the other, examining the eruption of huge yellow boils and pustules and thinking hard. “What is this…” she murmured, and was about to pull out her phone to call Karel for a consult when the memory flooded back. “Ohhh. Oh, this is _so_ not good.”

“You know what it is?”

“I’ve got a pretty good idea. Watch him, will you, in case he wakes up; we don’t want him falling off the counter. I’ve got to find something.” She went over to a stack of boxes and rummaged through one that was stuffed with books. “I know I packed it this morning…”

“Look, I’ve gotta call Nick.”

“Fine, just give me a minute so you’ll have something useful to tell him. Ah, there it is.” She pulled out a leather-bound tome, glanced at the index and started paging through it rapidly. “Yes!”

She scanned the entry and nodded, reading through the ingredients. “Yes, we can treat this, everything we need is here.” Looking around at the disorder and empty spaces on the shelves, she added, “Somewhere.” She brought the open book over to rest on the counter beyond Wu’s head, finger trailing over the page while she read, and glanced at Wu’s face for confirmation. She shook her head. “There’s only one way to deal with this and it’s not anything a normal hospital can do. It’s up to us, or he’ll die.”

“Die!” Monroe said, alarmed. Then, “ _Us??”_

“Okay. Call…Nick.” It felt weird to use the Grimm’s first name, though Monroe did so easily. “I know what to do now but… _he_ should be here.”

Monroe hit speed dial and Nick answered with his usual, “Yeah?”

“This cop you sent down here is in really bad shape. I mean, he just walked in and collapsed. And his whole face looks like a volcano that’s about to explode. Rosalee says there’s only one way to deal with this and it’s not, you know, standard medical practice, so you gotta get down here – fast!”

Caught in the middle of the debriefing with Captain Renard over how their murder suspects in the Calvert case had just gotten away, with Hank stepping up to take the blame because he got distracted thinking he’d seen somebody else, Nick lowered the phone and turned back to his boss and partner.

“Ah, I sent Sergeant Wu over to the Spice Shop and I think he has something…” which was true, just not in the sense they’d take it, “so, if you cover this, I’ll see what he has?”

Renard just said, “Go.” As Nick left, the Captain turned back to Hank. “We all make mistakes, Hank. Luckily no one got hurt.” And inwardly he was pleased…Adalind’s obsession potion was taking effect.

Back at the shop, Rosalee was whisking a concoction in a large stone bowl with a tightly bound bundle of twigs while Monroe frantically searched the shelves for the ingredients she needed.

“I can’t find the…the thyme extract, are you sure it’s here?”

“Top shelf, corner right. I saw some yesterday.” Having grown up playing and later helping at her family’s shop, she knew where almost all the common items were kept.

Monroe’s eyes lit up in relief when he spied the bottle and closed his hand around it. “Got it!” He took it to Rosalee and pulled out its stopper before handing the nearly full bottle of yellow-brown liquid to her – then was surprised when she poured the entire bottle into the stone bowl without measuring. “ _All_ of it?”

He sincerely hoped that she knew what she was doing.

“He’ll need it,” she said, stirring the fragrant herbal extract into the concoction.

At that moment Nick rushed into the shop and stopped at Wu’s side, looking down at him in understandable alarm. “We need to get him to a hospital!”

“They won’t know what to do,” Rosalee told him matter-of-factly. “They’ll read it as one of those mystery infections they can’t identify, and he’ll die. I’ve seen this before.”

Wu suddenly sat bolt upright, wild-eyed, struggling and screaming. Monroe grabbed and restrained him while Rosalee called out, “Hold him down! Hold him down!”

Monroe eased the sick man back down on the counter, Nick standing by ready to help. Rosalee brought the bowl over and dabbed the concoction onto Wu’s erupted skin with a round natural sponge while Nick held his head still.

Wu was making scared, pained sounds while she worked. In a soothing voice she kept saying, “Here we go…here we go…”

Frantic, pinning Wu’s shoulders to the counter, Monroe urged, “Hurry up – this is not going well!”

“Open his mouth,” she ordered.

Alarmed, Nick asked, “What – you want him to _drink_ it?”

“Yeah – he’d better,” she said, an edge to her voice. “C’mon!”

Occupied with holding Wu down, Monroe told Nick, “Open his mouth!”

Out of options, Nick put one hand on top of Wu’s head and used the thumb of his other hand to pull down and hold Wu’s lower jaw. Rosalee had transferred the treatment liquid into a smaller black bowl and now poured it into Wu’s mouth.

He spluttered but had to swallow, bucking against their restraint. Grunting and panting, he looked at each of them wild-eyed as if they were all monsters from his worst nightmares leaning down to get him.

Rosalee could only imagine the hallucinations he was seeing. To reduce the visual stimulation feeding the bizarre images, she covered his face with a thin black cloth while he cried out in terror, doing as the book advised and as she now remembered seeing long ago in the treatment room adjoining this one.

Now all they could do was watch and wait.

 

Night had fallen while they struggled to treat the unfortunate sergeant and anxiously awaited the result. There was little conversation in the tense room. Rosalee hoped fervently that she’d made the correct diagnosis and that the treatment had been administered in time, though she couldn’t imagine anything else that might cause such symptoms.

Nick and Monroe each privately hoped and prayed that they could trust this stranger’s knowledge and abilities to deal with this bizarre and potentially fatal illness afflicting the affable and sardonic sergeant.

Rosalee discretely picked up Wu’s wrist and glanced at her wristwatch, silently counting.

Nick couldn’t help asking, again, “How much longer?”

“His pulse has calmed down. We may as well have a look.” Nick and Monroe exchanged worried glances as she drew back the black cloth, while masking her feelings of fear and curiosity.

The horrible boils and pustules were gone, leaving Wu’s face shiny from the treatment concoction and his own sweat, his skin showing numerous small red lesions. He remained blessedly unconscious.

Rosalee released the pent up breath she hadn’t realized she was holding as Nick nodded and Monroe sighed with relief.

“I think it worked,” she said. Monroe chuckled and smiled at her while Nick observed her across Wu’s still form. “He’s going to sleep for quite awhile. Is there some place we can take him? I think it would be best if he woke up in familiar surroundings.” _Certainly not here_ , she added silently.

“Well, his apartment’s not far.” Nick had never been in Wu’s apartment but he’d dropped the sergeant off outside his building a couple of times after they’d gone out for drinks with Hank.

“I’ll get his feet,” Monroe said.

“Not so fast – I think you’d better bring your car around to the alley,” Rosalee said, to Nick. “Kind of hard to explain hauling an unconscious man out the front door into someone’s private vehicle, even at night.”

“Um, right.” Nick shook his head, glad someone was keeping a cool head in this tricky situation. “Where’s the access?”

She gave him quick directions while she searched Wu’s pockets for his keys. “There’s a back door. We’ll meet you there. Mind the trash cans, it’s going to be tight.”

 

_This day just keeps getting weirder and weirder_ , Rosalee thought, leading the way as scout before Monroe and Nick followed her into Wu’s old brick apartment building carrying the slumped and oblivious Wu by his legs and shoulders. It was late enough that they were lucky and didn’t encounter any of his neighbors on the way up to his apartment.

She unlocked his door and held it wide open for them to hurry him inside, then quickly closed and locked it behind them, pressing the back of her hand to her forehead with relief when they were safely inside undetected. She watched them lay Wu gently on his living room couch, and looked around at the eclectic décor – obscure movie posters, a bike, shelves filled with paperback graphic novels and even, oddly, vintage metal 35mm film cans.

He was obviously a tech aficionado as well, given the computer setup and gaming consoles. The apartment was tidy and uncluttered, and she caught a strong whiff of cat; not an untended litter box smell but the animal itself, lurking somewhere beyond this room and no doubt watching them.

This was a far, far cry from her daily routine working at the Seattle compounding pharmacy, as unusual as its clientele might be.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Nick. “You said you’ve seen this before?”

“Yeah, at my parents’ shop.” She shook her head at the recovered memory. “I was probably seventeen. A friend of my father’s came in with the same symptoms.” She waved toward Wu. “My father said he had ingested a zaubertrank meant for someone else.”

Monroe regarded her seriously. “A zaubertrank. They can be nasty.”

“Does somebody want to tell me what a ‘zaubertrank’ is?” Nick prompted.

“Primitive, antediluvian, pseudo-psychological concoctions meant to mess with your head.” It was the first time she’d heard one of Monroe’s verbose and circuitous explanations but she had to agree the description laid it out pretty well for the uninitiated.

“It causes obsessive behaviors,” she explained. “If the right person takes it, it causes a deep emotional response, but if the wrong person takes it…” she gestured at the unfortunate cookie-stealing Wu, “ _this_ happens. I think we caught it in time.”

“Can we leave him alone?” Nick asked cautiously.

“Yeah. He should be good for…” she guessed, “a few hours.”

“All right.” Nick turned all his attention on her. “We almost caught the men who killed your brother but they got away. And we also found this…pipe. It kind of looked like a horn.”

“A saugendampf,” she said.

Monroe shook his head and put his hand to his forehead in dismay. “Oh, man – addicts. And you got their stash? They will be needing more and I’m telling you, addicts with guns…is a _bad_ combo.”

“Where would they go for more?” Nick asked, looking directly at Rosalee.

Not noticing, Monroe answered, shaking his head. “Don’t look at me, I’m not…” and made a _pfff_ sound.

“I’m not.” Nick kept his eyes on Rosalee, and Monroe turned to them, surprised as Nick said, “I have a feeling _you_ know.”

She looked at Nick, then Monroe, squirming inside. She swallowed hard and admitted, “Yeah. I was addicted for seven years. My brother finally helped me to get clean. That’s why I went to Seattle.” It hurt to see Monroe staring at her with wide eyes; she was surprised to feel how much this near-stranger’s opinion of her mattered. “If they’re looking to score, it’ll be an Island of Dreams.”

Looking even more stunned, Monroe raised his eyebrows. “A _trauminsel?_ Here? _”_

Rosalee shook her head sadly. “They’re everywhere.”

Nick asked, “Are we talking some kind of Wesen crack house?”

Painfully she admitted, “Yeah.”

“How do we find it?”

She shifted her eyes warily to Nick. Trying to help find Freddy’s killers had led her right back to the very people and places she most desperately needed to avoid. “We find a dealer. They’ll know.”

 

Before they headed into the dark industrial war zone, Nick swapped cars for a black plain-wrap police sedan, not as noticeable as his personal Land Cruiser. Rosalee rode in the back seat struggling with the implications of what she had to do, and at what physical and psychological risk to her health and sobriety.

_This is for Freddy. This is not me any more; I will never be that strung out self-destructive person again. I’m just acting a role. Just this once, so they can catch these guys._ And yet she already felt how toxic it was to put on her old streetwise self and walk out into that treacherous and seductive milieu again.

There it was. A brand new model of course, they could afford the very best and latest. But it was Cecil’s spot. She pointed out the large, expensive black SUV parked alone at the curb on the trash-strewn street surrounded by graffitied construction fencing, isolated dark buildings and shuffling transients hunched and bundled up against the cold and their personal demons.

“There. Keep driving past, come around and drop me off a couple blocks down and around the corner.”

“I _do know_ how to do this,” Nick said dryly, his cop-self coming to the fore and already doing what she’d said.

“It’s not safe for you to be out here in these streets!” Monroe protested.

“No kidding.” She shot him a dark look when he turned around to look back at her, worried. “And how else are you going to find your way undercover into a trauminsel?”

They parked on a dark street where they could watch without being observed and she got out alone. Only steps from the car she felt her old hard shell form around her, psychic antennas bristling to detect the first hint of danger but driven forward to fulfill an irresistible need – this time to trap Freddy’s killers, not to feed her once rabid craving for Jay.

Her walk changed as she made her way up the junk-strewn sidewalk toward the hulking SUV, its brake lights lit as it waited, luring the thrill seeking and the desperate. She felt herself close down, holding herself tightly, huddled in her coat while projecting a world weary, streetwise attitude in the way she moved.

She approached the SUV’s driver side and tapped on the window. Two men were inside, music blaring, dashboard lit up. The window went down and their loud music blasted out into the night, urging listeners to “feed your head”.

Cecil looked out at her with mildly surprised recognition. “You’re kidding me. Rosalee?”

She shifted back and forth on her feet, acting twitchy, and looked down. “Mmm hmm.”

He looked her up and down, his expression both assessing and lewd. “You’re looking _good_.” She certainly wasn’t the last time he’d seen her. “I thought you went straight, baby?” He watched her fidget and rock back and forth. “What are you doing around these parts again?”

“Oh…you know why I’m here.” She rubbed under her nose and looked at him.

“It’s a shame,” he said, not meaning it at all. The thuggish man in the passenger seat watched silently. “How much trauminsel time you want?”

“Enough for two.” She handed him a wad of cash – courtesy of Nick since she had so little money; he’d been disturbed at how expensive it was.

The silent man passed two cards to Cecil with the vapor-woman Jay logo on one side. When Cecil handed them off to her, she turned them over to see the stamped address: 418 NE Catrick Ave. PPX

“Sweet dreams,” Cecil said, grinning as his colleague laughed darkly. The SUV window closed silently as she turned and walked on up the street past a dumpster overflowing onto the sidewalk.

According to plan, Nick’s car was now waiting a block up and over. She got in the back and nearly collapsed with relief, handing him the cards.

“Was there any change?” he asked hopefully as she fastened her seat belt.

“No. Street price has gone up.”

“So when is this…trauminsel?” He almost got the pronunciation.

She looked at him askance. “ _Now_. It’s not like they book ahead and advertise.”

“’Course not. Well, that’s good, the faster we can move on these guys…”

Monroe took one of the cards and looked up the address on his phone. “Oh, man, this is a real bad place.”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” Nick said. “Cops only work in the best parts of town.”

“Yeah, well…” Monroe held out his phone with the location mapped and Nick grimaced. Then he took both tickets and handed them back to Rosalee to hold while he drove.

They crossed Portland’s dividing Willamette River and drove into a derelict waterfront area of shabby warehouses, decaying buildings and stacks of abandoned shipping containers covered with graffiti.

“Generally I have some qualms about it, but gentrification can’t take over this place any too soon,” Monroe said as they drove through the urban wasteland. Few of the streetlights were working and even fewer of the buildings had security lighting.

Nick turned onto NE Catrick and parked two blocks down from their target address. All of the buildings were dark inside, the surrounding streets deserted. But there was a light stream of pedestrian activity making its way toward one warehouse, people moving alone or in small groups of two or three.

“Stay in the car,” Nick told Rosalee. “Doors locked, windows up.” He and Monroe got out while she watched through her open window.

“It’s my brother. I should be the one that goes in.” She knew they had little idea what they would be walking into.

“You’ve done enough.” Nick put his hand out, brooking no opposition and she relented, handing him the tickets. She raised the window while she watched them head down the street.

As they walked, Monroe was putting on the outward shell of his old bad persona as well. “Let me handle this,” he told Nick, holding out his hand for the tickets while thinking he was insane, escorting a Grimm into a trauminsel full of intoxicated Wesen druggies. “Just – don’t act like a cop, okay? We’re just a couple of Blutbaden out on the town, having a good time.” Nick handed him the tickets without protest.

Not the kind of “good time” Monroe had ever considered, even during his wild times. Alcohol was Angelina’s only drug of choice…unless you considered blood a drug. She didn’t want anything messing with her full awareness of the experiences she called fun. Same went for Monroe himself, Hap and the other Blutbaden they’d run with, though they’d been known to smoke a little pot from time to time around a campfire to wind down from their adventures.

_At least those were natural substances_ , he thought, then admitted _, along with a hell of a lot of other stuff that could screw you up royally. But drugs like Jay and Wesen Spice – that was some seriously bad shit._ He knew that nobody stayed a “social” user for very long.

They joined the trickle of people walking toward the warehouse where a large, menacing bouncer waited, arms crossed, by the side door.

Monroe walked up to him casually, Nick close behind. He displayed their tickets. “What up, bro?” He _woged_ briefly. The bouncer nodded them in.

Inside was dark, of course. They walked over to a balcony area overlooking the warehouse floor. Hypnotic music rose, slow and strange, trance-inducing. Smoke and vapors filled the air, rising up to assail their eyes and lungs while they looked down at the strange sights below.

Low voices murmured, laughed and moaned, emanating from perhaps a dozen round peaked tents of gauzy fabric glowing red from the lights inside while servers moved from tent to tent with trays and pots and burners, replenishing supplies. The effect was surreal and disturbing.

They made their way down to the lower level passing celebrants who staggered against the stairway walls, some laughing, some dazed and vacant-eyed. Nick felt his skin crawl, surrounded by so many drugged-up Wesen, and wondered briefly if Aunt Marie had ever encountered one of these “Islands of Dreams”. If so there were probably few survivors.

Monroe had studied the Skalengecks’ human mug shots carefully on Nick’s phone on their way to this little undercover operation, and now he moved with Nick among the tents searching for a match to those faces. He grimaced at the sweet acrid scent of vaporizing Jay cooking in those pots, and this was just the second-hand stuff that got away.

His highly sensitive sense of smell overwhelmed, Monroe coughed and shook his head. His voice thick and choking, he told Nick, “I can’t smell anything in here, man. This is _brutal_.”

Nick pointed to a cluster of tents. “You take those – but be careful!”

Moving separately, they looked into each tent they passed through the parted drapings. Wesen – some _woged_ , some not, lounged and sat and lay together, some talking and laughing, others lost in their visions, gathered around the simmering pots that exuded their drug of choice. Many were eagerly huffing the vapors through twisted saugendampfs that Nick recognized from the Skalengecks’ squat in their derelict apartment building.

While they searched, Rosalee waited restlessly in the car. She had no intention of following the Grimm’s orders; she was just giving them enough time to be out of visual range.

She could only imagine the reaction of the Jay-addled mob when rumor spread that a Grimm was in there stalking them. There would be panic and chaos – dangerous chaos. And she was determined that this time Freddy’s killers were not getting away.

She got out and made her way silently down the dark street. She skirted the side entrance where the bouncer checked tickets and _woges_ for new entrants, and scouted the possible exits a crowd would rush when the panic hit, thinking where she would likely have headed when a trauminsel was raided in her dark days. She’d seen people stuck in narrow doorways struggling and fighting to get out, clawing and trampling each other.

Then she surveyed the building’s loading dock, high enough to back in a semi trailer for unloading but not so high that a fleeing crowd couldn’t swarm through and jump down to street level. There were dumpsters down there for cover.

She took to a hiding place in the building’s black shadow and looked around for anything she could use as a weapon, wishing for a moment that she had a gun – not that she knew how to shoot one with much hope of hitting her target.

Her Fuchsbau claws and fangs would not be enough against a full-grown Skalengeck. Finding nothing else, she grabbed a loose brick from a pile fallen from the old warehouse’s façade and hefted it, testing its weight. It would have to do.

Later in life, she would wish that she’d kept that brick and had it bronzed, or something.

Hunkered down, brick held in both hands, she listened intently. It didn’t take long.

Shots were fired inside the building – lots of them, their rapid staccato popping unmistakable outside. Shouts and screams erupted along with them, the sounds of a crowd overcome with panic and struggling to escape.

She watched the fleeing people pour out onto the loading dock like swarms of cockroaches when a light’s flipped on, or hordes of rats out of a movie nightmare. They ran in all directions, climbing down or leaping off the loading dock and scattering out into the night streets.

And then she thought she heard Monroe’s voice yelling above them all, “I got him, Nick! I got him!”

While the rest of the trauminsel denizens ran off as fast as they could, one man jumped off the dock and took cover behind a dumpster, his back to her as he crouched in its shadow. She saw a brief metallic glint off his gun.

Monroe emerged from the warehouse scanning the fleeing crowd. He walked across the dock past stacks of old pallets and jumped down, coming toward the dumpster.

The man behind it shifted, preparing for action.

So did Rosalee.

Just as Monroe passed the dumpster, the man leaped out, gun held in both hands, to shoot Monroe.

But even faster Rosalee was there behind him, brick raised and ready, and smashed the back of the man’s head. He went down like the proverbial ton of bricks.

Resisting the powerful vindictive impulse to smash his brains out completely, she’d pulled her punch enough to leave him alive, though with a probable skull fracture. His scalp was bleeding profusely and he didn’t move or make a sound. She recognized him as Joshua Hall, one of the two suspects.

When she looked up, Monroe was staring at her, mouth open, with a look of amazement and gratitude.

All of the trauminsel patrons and sponsors had fled by the time Nick wrestled the battered, cursing and limping Clint Vickers out of the building to join them where they stood over the unconscious Joshua.

“These are the guys,” Rosalee said with certainty, looking up from Joshua to glare with deepest hatred at Clint.

“What are you doing out here?” Nick asked. “I told you to stay in the car.”

“Saving my life,” Monroe said, nodding toward her. “This one sure knows how to clock a guy with a brick.” He pointed to her blood-splashed weapon now lying on the ground beside her victim.

“Wait – _you_ did this?” Nick looked from Rosalee to the fallen perp in disbelief.

She just shrugged.

Clint snarled and _woged_ , still struggling in Nick’s grasp despite the handcuffs behind his back. He hissed and snapped at Rosalee, who stared back at him unflinching.

“The way this guy’s limping, I suspect we’ll find a match with the DNA of that chunk your brother bit out of his murderer,” Nick said.

“The freaking idiot!” Clint spewed. “If he hadn’t of hit the alarm and bit me, we woulda just left him there beat up on the floor. But no, the fool had to go and fight back!”

At that Rosalee _woged_ and flew at him, ears back, claws and fangs forward, slashing at his scaly face and throat. It was all Monroe could do to pull her off before she killed Nick’s prisoner.

Nick yanked Clint backward from her attack, shouting at her to stop. “We’ve got him! We’ve got the evidence, and we’ve got our guys. We’re done here!”

She dropped her _woge_ in shock. “What? What are you talking about?” she raged. “You’re a _Grimm!_ They’re _not_ leaving this place alive tonight; they’re going to pay for Freddy! If you won’t do it, I will!”

“They’ll pay, all right, but we’re doing this the legal way. Much as possible, I’m a cop first; Grimm later, if I have to be.”

His now human face bleeding where her claws had slashed him, Clint smirked while Rosalee stared at Nick in disbelief.

“Killing’s too good for them,” Monroe said to her, shaking his head. “Nothing’s much worse for a Wesen than spending the rest of your life locked up in a kehrseite prison.” He had nightmares about that very thing, knowing if he’d been caught with Angelina for some of their worst ‘fun’, they’d both be dead or serving life without parole.

“Yep,” Nick said. “Murder in the course of an armed robbery, of an unarmed citizen no less.”

“We didn’t touch the money!” Clint snarled. “What robbery?”

“You stole Jay,” Rosalee said. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter what it was, you stole some of the stock from his shop and then came back for more when I was there, and then you attacked _me_. But this time you left a witness, and I can document what you took.”

“Yeah, try to tell a human jury what jacine is and why anybody’d want it.”

“Yeah. Try to explain to a jury why you were stealing large quantities of an obscure deadly poison and came back for more after killing the shop owner. _That’ll_ go over well,” Monroe said, having sat on any number of juries himself. Self-employed people with flexible schedules got summoned and chosen a lot. “Might even earn you a visit from Homeland Security.”

“Okay, you two need to make yourselves scarce. I’m calling this in. No need to complicate matters any more than they already are,” Nick said. He nodded toward Joshua. “He’s out for awhile yet, right?”

Rosalee nodded sharply. “Maybe permanently. Or maybe a coma, brain damage. Whatever.”

“Fine, so I can handle this myself until everybody gets here.” _And think up a cover story that our perp here can’t blow apart_ , he told himself, mind already working the possibilities.

“Yeah, well – I’m callin’ _them_ out,” Clint said, already trying to do just that.

“Hey, worst case, we’re just private citizens here for a rave gone wrong, and then trying to help out the police,” Monroe countered. “You’re the one that started firing a gun in there and caused a panic, I’m witness to that. And your bud there’s still got his gun in his hand, aimed it right at me. Lucky more people weren’t hurt or killed.”

Both Rosalee and Nick looked at him with surprised appreciation.

“Okay, I think we’ve got this,” Nick said. “We can tell them as much of the truth as anyone…outside, can believe.”

“Uh-huh,” Clint said. “You obviously know each other, explain that.”

“Yeah, well, I knew that Nick’s a cop – among other things – from another case, so when I heard about _this_ thing happening here, I told him he might want to check it out.” Improvising as he went along, Monroe added, “Plus I was kind of curious about these deals and decided to take a little walk on the wild side…with my girlfriend here.” They had to explain why the murder victim’s sister was involved, a little bit too much of a coincidence. “Turns out the guys he’s been looking for on this homicide case were soaking up the vapes and vibes here, too. Synchronicity, man; shit happens.”

On a roll now, Monroe was enjoying this, running out his nervous energy from his brush with death in the weaving of this tale. “Karma’s a bitch and sometimes the payback comes sooner than you think.”

Rosalee watched and listened, taking a deeper interest in this peculiar Blutbad spinning a plausible story that would make any Fuchsbau feel proud.

Clint wasn’t buying it. “She’s your girlfriend. A Fuchsbau.”

“Hey, you guys attacked her at the shop last night. She was worried you’d come after her again at home, so I went over and stayed the night.” He let his eyes glow red. “Good thing you didn’t show.”

“Blutbad and Fuchsbau.” Clint’s face registered disgust. “That’s twisted, man.”

“Coming from you? Tough.” Monroe was really getting into his fable, feeling even more protective toward Rosalee.

“I’ve known weirder pairs,” Rosalee said. “You sure your mother didn’t do it with a Lebensauger?”

His prisoner went apoplectic at that insult, writhing and _woging_ in his cuffs, and Nick decided he had to call a halt to this too-complex cover story before it got out of control.

“Okay, okay, we’re doing the ‘right to remain silent’ deal here and that applies to all parties.” He shot warning looks at his two allies. “Clint Vickers, I’m arresting you for the murder of Frederick Calvert in the course of an armed robbery, along with the assault and battery of Rosalee Calvert. Let’s add illegal discharge of a firearm indoors with reckless disregard for public safety, resisting arrest, assault and attempted murder of a police officer…”

Nick was on a roll of his own, finishing a minute later by reciting the Miranda warnings. “Now you’re getting down on the ground and staying there while I call this in.”

He nodded wordlessly to Monroe and Rosalee so they understood that they needed to be clear and consistent when they answered any questions about what went down here. And then he pulled out his phone.

 

The warehouse district was soon filled with cop cars, light bars flashing, a CSU team and paramedics who treated Clint’s injuries at the scene before he was taken away, and triaged the still-unconscious Joshua before loading him into their van for transport.

“Most likely he’ll make it unless there’s a blood clot loose in there,” an EMT told them, “but he’s sure gonna have a hell of a headache when he comes around.”

“Good,” Rosalee said, but left it at that. They’d all made their preliminary statements by now and were free to go with the usual codicil about not leaving town without letting the investigators know. They started walking back to Nick’s car.

“I’ll drive you guys back to the Spice Shop on my way to check on Wu,” Nick said. He knew Monroe’s trusty Bug was there.

“Yeah, you’d better. He should certainly be awake by now.” Rosalee thought a moment and added, “You’ll need to watch for any lingering side effects.”

“Like what?” Nick asked, almost afraid to find out.

“Any odd behaviors, motor impairments, any more skin breakouts…anything that strikes you as _off_ about him.”

That last bit was a tall order with the quirky sergeant, but Nick agreed to keep an eye on him.

 

When Nick dropped them at the curb in front of the Spice Shop in the wee hours of the morning, Monroe looked dubiously at the dark building. “Do you need to go in and check anything?”

“No. No, I’m done for tonight. Please, just take me home.”

“Sure thing.” They got into the yellow Beetle for the short drive back to Freddy’s.

“You going to be okay by yourself there tonight?” he asked as he drove.

She was hugging herself tightly, trying to process all the bizarre and violent things that had happened tonight. But she gave a small smile. “Yeah. I’ll be fine. They’re off the streets; nobody else is going to be coming around. But thanks.”

“Hey, thank _you_. I’m used to being the big bad wolf protector when things go down. But I wouldn’t be here right now if you hadn’t snuck up and clobbered that guy.”

“This whole mess, this wasn’t your fight. Why do you put yourself at risk with this guy, this Grimm?”

“It’s…it’s a long story.” He looked at her with a surprised twinge of regret. “Wish you were going to be around longer to hear it.”

“Well…I’ve got a lot to do to wrap things up for Freddy. Arrange the funeral, close out his business and personal affairs. I still haven’t even notified the rest of the family; that’s going to be hard.” _Especially the ones who aren’t speaking to me._

“Well, if there’s anything – anything at all I can do to help, call me.” When she looked at him askance, he was flustered for just a moment. “Oh, right. With everything else going on….”

At the next red light he pulled out his wallet and fished for a business card, handing it to her as the light changed and he had to drive on.

She read it with a quizzical look. “Clocks?”

“Yup, ‘Clocks By Monroe’, that’s me. Like the card says, new, repairs, restorations.”

“Wow. Okay.”   She tucked it into her jeans pocket.

“And…we’re here.” He parked in front of the duplex. “Want me to walk you up, check around, just in case?”

“No, thanks, I’m good now. You should go home and get some sleep. It’s been…quite a day. And that couch time last night…”

“Not the best,” he agreed. “Okay. But please, don’t hesitate to call, day or night. My phone’s always on. Never know when I might get a call from an overseas client.” _Or Nick, more likely_.

“Hmmm. That sounds…interesting.” Clock repair was not an occupation she’d ever think to associate with a Blutbad.

“Oh, it is, it is. I could sure tell some stories; but maybe some other time while you’re…still in town.”

She unfastened her seatbelt and got out of the car, saying, “Thanks,” and giving him a small wave from the sidewalk before she hurried quietly up onto the porch. Monroe watched from the car until she was safely inside and he saw lights go on.

He was quietly thoughtful the rest of the way home. There was so much to think about.

 

Rosalee went straight through to the bathroom, shedding her clothes on the floor while she waited for the shower spray to warm. The expected call from Lionel came just before she stepped in.

“It’s three in the morning and I heard water running,” he said, worried. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay now; it’s been a wild night. I helped the police catch Freddy’s killers.”

_“What?”_

“They came back to finish robbing the shop while I was there, so I got a good look at them before I got away. I was able to give the cops a positive ID when they caught them.”

“Oh, Rosie…oh, wow…”

“It’s okay now, Lionel, and I really need a shower and some sleep after all this. Come by for breakfast in the morning and I’ll tell you what happened.” _Some of it, anyway._

“I will. I will. You just call me when you’re ready, sleep as late as you want. Good night.”

 

After her shower and the last of Freddy’s chile relleno casserole, Rosalee burrowed into the guest bed, her mind spinning with the events of the past two days. She was so tired, and completely drained. It was all too much, beyond overwhelming.

_I need to call Karel in the morning, let him know what’s going on. And the family, oh my god._ She winced at that thought. _Maybe I’ll call Aunt Lois and ask her to spread the bad news._ Her father’s sister, at least, would still speak to her, and sent birthday and Christmas cards. She sighed, feeling better with that solution.

Then her brows pinched again _. I’m going to have to be here awhile to handle all these things. I need to find out when they’ll release him…his body…._ Tears stung at that thought. _And contact the funeral home._ She was certain it would be Lamb and Sons, the Seelengut family that had been burying their fellow Wesen for generations, including the Calverts and their kin.

_Read through his instructions, figure out a date for the funeral and who all to notify; right, I need to put an obit in the papers, here and Seattle._ Freddy’s personal and professional acquaintance was wide. The thought occurred that he might have pre-written his own obituary as well, with just the final date and circumstances to be added when the time came. She wouldn’t be surprised.

Just before she faded into sleep, she wondered vaguely if the Skalengeck she’d whacked would survive unimpaired, and if there was any way her attack defending Monroe could blow back on her. But by then she was too exhausted to care.

 

Rosalee was up and dressed just after seven when she called Lionel. “I have coffee ready and I guess we can figure out breakfast. I could really use your help with some of the things I need to do.”

“I’ve already been out to Grand Central and bought breakfast croissants. I’ll be right down.”

“Okay, door’s unlocked.”

He was there in just over a minute with the bakery box and found Rosalee already working at the dining room table, Freddy’s files and documents spread across the tablecloth. “All that,” he marveled. “I’ll just go warm these in the micro.”

“Thanks. I cut up some fruit Freddy had in the fridge….”

Their eyes met, stricken with shared loss. Lionel bit his lips and nodded, going through to set up their working breakfast.

She’d left two places clear at one corner of the table where they sat together sipping coffee and eating companionably, though Lionel took out a white handkerchief to dab his eyes from time to time.

“I couldn’t begin to count the times I’ve sat here with Freddy and shared a meal, or he’s done the same upstairs with me. We never ran out of things to talk about. He was very well read, you know, interested in so many things. I’m going to miss him more than I can ever tell you.” Lionel’s deep mourning showed, especially around his eyes.

“You were very special friends.” Rosalee had sometimes wondered how special, and in what ways.

Even in his teens and young adulthood, her brother had never shown an interest in dating or romantic relationships...of any kind. There had been quite a number of unrequited crushes on him by schoolmates of both sexes, Wesen and kehrseiten, and he’d seemed oblivious to them all.

She didn’t know Lionel and his past that personally, but Freddy had told her years ago that Lionel was kehrseite, and not schlich-kennen. His dearest human friend was completely unaware of the Wesen world and Freddy meant to keep it that way.

“What would be the point?” he’d said, when she wondered about him keeping his whole secret Wesen life from his best friend and neighbor. “It would only put him at risk, his sanity and his safety. Why should he have to know about the Laufer, the Royals, the Verrat…the Council, the Ehrenkodex, any of that, even beyond just the shock of finding out that our kinds exist?”

“What does he really know about the shop, about what you do there?”

“Not much. He’s been there, of course, but he just believes what the signs say, including the ‘exotic cures’. He knows our family’s been practicing forms of alternative medicine for generations; that’s good enough for him. And I don’t need to know all the details of investment property management, either, like he does.”

“But then how can you be such close friends?”

“It’s because we just enjoy each other’s company, our shared interests; we’ve always kept it simple.”

He’d taken her hands in his, trying to help her understand. “Every waking moment of my life as far back as I can remember, and even in my subconscious while asleep, I know I’m Wesen. Our family’s work, in the shop and out in the community, politically, it’s always present, all the complications, the dangers.

“But when I’m with Lionel, we’re just…human together. He’s my connection, my lodestone to the kehrseite world. For a little while I’m not Frederick Calvert, Fuchsbau apothecary, son and heir to our family vocation, Laufer activist and Council contact now that Dad’s dead. For awhile, I can pretend all that doesn’t exist, and that I’m just…normal.”

“Oh, Freddy…do you really wish you weren’t Wesen?”

“No. No! That’s not what I meant. You know how important our community is to me; it’s my life’s work. I never wanted anything else. But it’s too easy to start seeing the kehrseiten as _less than_ , as _other_ , as a threat, and forget that for the most part in our everyday lives, we are more like them than we are our Other selves. I catch myself thinking that way too much; Lionel is my best antidote to that.”

She’d thought she’d understood after that conversation.

But as she’d later learned, his bond with Lionel had not kept him from colluding with Geiers to supply processed human organs for use in treating his Wesen clients, and turning a blind eye to where they came from. Some humans, then, were more important than others; the others could be sacrificed for the benefit of Wesen when necessary.

“He was a complicated man,” Lionel said, drawing her attention back to the present. “I always felt there was a lot more to him than what I knew.” He smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “I used to wonder if he was a secret agent of some kind, or one of those imbedded ‘sleeper cell’ spies you read about and see in movies.”

“Our Freddy?” Rosalee hid her concern, pretending surprise.

Lionel chuckled. “Sounds fanciful, I know. But even if it were true, he was first and foremost my friend, and we were there for each other through all kinds of difficult times.”

He fixed his hazel eyes on her seriously. “Like when you were going through so much trouble, and frankly he nearly despaired. I told him not to give up on you, give you one more chance. I lost a sister that way…I couldn’t bear for that to happen to him, he loved you so.”

“Oh, Lionel…I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

“She gave up hope. The addiction was stronger than she was, she couldn’t stay clean. Then she got some bad stuff on the street; between the OD and the poison it was cut with, she was gone before anyone found her.” He laid his dark hand over her pale one. “I’m so glad that didn’t happen to you.”

“It was close, a lot of times. I felt so worthless, and weak. I don’t even know why some people make it through and others don’t. But Freddy was my lifeline and…I don’t know what I’m going to do now. What was it all for?”

“It was for _you_ to live, and have a good life. And maybe…not really my business but I’ll stick my nose in anyway, for him…maybe keep his shop running, if you can. It was his life passion, helping people that medical science failed, and people who didn’t trust modern medicine. And he always hoped someday you’d come back to it. I remember you trained for it too, but you seemed to lose interest after that British fellow you were in love with left Portland.”

“I lost interest in a lot of things after Ian left me. I was shattered. I was also very young and selfish and foolish; everything was all about me. I used to try to blame Ian for everything bad that happened to me after he left, but that was wrong; I finally worked that out in years of therapy. It was my bad choices that got me in so much trouble…and I lost all my family that way, too. You know they’re not speaking to me, Mom and DeEtta and most of the others.”

“I know. Because of your Dad.”

Hot tears spilled down her face and trickled to the corners of her mouth. “And now I’ve lost Freddy. I need you to help me, Lionel. There are some things I have to do that I just can’t do alone.”

“You just name them, sweetie. I’m here for you.”

She wiped her eyes on her napkin and waved it toward all the papers spread out on the table. “He set up everything he possibly could. But this….”

She clasped his hand and stood up, drawing him to his feet and tugging him toward the hall. Lionel followed her to the threshold of Freddy’s bedroom.

“I haven’t been able to even step foot in here. It was his private place. And now….” The tears streamed anew and her voice was high and strained. “Now I have to pick out the clothes to bury him in, and I just can’t do it.”

Lionel surprised her by making a hoarse choking sound before breaking down in sudden racking sobs. The older man took both of her hands and clenched them tightly, bent over, head down. Then he pulled out his handkerchief and covered his face while he struggled for composure.

When he’d recovered enough to speak, voice rough at first, he said, “Of course I will, child. I’m honored. Did he leave any instructions at all?”

“Just that he wanted his best suit, vest and tie, and an open casket. Will you help me, Lionel? And…will you stand with me, for Freddy?” He would likely be the only human at Freddy’s funeral but she didn’t care.

“Wild dogs couldn’t keep me away. Come on. Sit down on the bed and we’ll decide.”

It was a painful ritual but Lionel was very kind. He knew Freddy’s tastes and preferences, his favorite color combinations, even the way he liked to knot his tie. She huddled on the edge of the brass bed while Lionel brought out various suits and vests and ties from Freddy’s closet, matching them with dress shirts and telling stories about places they’d gone and things they’d done together when Freddy was wearing this one or that one.

“I didn’t know he had so many clothes,” Rosalee said at last, looking into the open closet doors.

“Oh, he liked to dress, our Freddy. I used to tease him how formal he was even for everyday, but he sure could wear his clothes. Never one for the ladies, or the gents for that matter, but that didn’t keep him from wanting to look good all the time.” Lionel’s eyes twinkled at those memories, and Rosalee couldn’t repress a giggle, knowing it was true.

“He was always that way even when we were kids – except when we’d run wild together, fishing and hunting, climbing trees. He was the best older brother in the world. Even though he was an awful tease.”

“Hard for me to imagine Freddy running wild anywhere.” He chuckled and sat down next to her on the bed. “Hunting, you say? I never knew he’d touched a gun.”

“Oh – no. No guns; more...trapping and catching.” She realized she needed to be more careful; it was too easy to be comfortable with Lionel and maybe let slip something she couldn’t explain away. “That was a long time ago, before we really grew up.”

“Before I knew him, then.”

“Mostly. He’s…he _was_ a few years younger than you.”

“Yes. So smart, he skipped some grades so he was much younger than the rest of our class. When you’re still kids, it matters.”

“He did. He got bored and restless, so Mom and Dad agreed to let him accelerate through school. But they warned him it could be a problem like that.”

“I kind of took him under my wing; at first he reminded me of my brother Darren. Very intellectual; not into sports and social things, and neither was I. A very serious boy…except for his wicked humor and his pranks.” Lionel shook his head, and Rosalee laughed again, surprised that she could. “He pulled some outrageous things at school that never got pinned on him; no one would believe that Fred Calvert could even conceive of such behavior!”

“He was a master of things like that from early on,” she agreed with a tremulous smile, “and growing up, sometimes I was his partner in crime.” Freddy had honed his skills at appearing to be a staid, serious innocent party from an early age, and used his mastery of that to hide what he really was for the rest of his life.

“I’d love to hear some of those stories. I wonder if you’ll tell the same ones he told me…or if you’ll tell some new ones on him.”

“We need to do that,” she agreed. “We need to keep his memory alive. And not just the Freddy he presented to the rest of the world.”

“We do. And now I think…this suit, and this tie, with the charcoal pinstripe vest and the pale blue shirt. I think that looks like him getting dressed up today. I’ll gather up all the bits and pieces to put him together this last time. You just tell me where to take everything.”

“Thank you, Lionel. Thank you…”

 

Later that morning she found herself alone again in Freddy’s shop…now hers, in the dimness under its rain-washed skylights. Tiny dust motes hung in the air in the filtered light. The empty spaces on the many shelves and display cabinets brought home to her all over again that Freddy was permanently gone, his dedicated life’s work over.

She moved silently from room to room, each one filled with memories. If that treatment cot could speak…oh, the stories it could tell. She remembered helping Grandma Calvert piece the quilt that covered it when she was a little girl, and bent to brush her fingertips over it.

Monroe’s words came back to her. _It’s going to be sad to see this place close. There’s not that many places we can go any more_ ….

She wandered on past the old fridge and toaster oven in the back room away from customers’ view where Freddy had fixed his work meals and kept those supplies that required refrigeration. Metal and wood cabinets were filled with client’s medical files and business records going back to her parents’ tenure here. Specialized equipment and tools for unusual treatments filled the shelves or sat in their cases stashed in shadowy corners.

And there were the books. So many books, some centuries old, some even hand written, filled with secret Wesen lore; more than a few might be the only copies still in existence.

She stopped at the basement stairs, not willing to go down there again just yet. Instead she made her way up to the rooms above the shop, used mostly for storage now, where her parents had lived in the early years of establishing their business before they could afford a home where they could raise their family. Freddy had several drying racks up there filled with herbs in various stages of desiccation, labeled jars on a nearby table waiting to be filled when the ingredients were ready.

Her mother had designed the Spice Shop’s blue labels with their distinctive white and gold Art Nouveau borders. She recognized the different handwritings on each jar, some Freddy’s, some Gloria’s and George’s. There were even a few of her own dating back to her late teens and early twenties.

And now it was all about to go away when she sold off what she could and disposed of the rest, emptied the place and put the historic building on the market.

Her parents had bought it cheaply from their landlord back when this Chinatown-bordering-Old Town neighborhood was anything but savory. She wondered for a moment what kind of business would take this space. Maybe something like a bicycle shop, this being Portland.

She hoped the new owner would keep their long-term tenant in the leased space attached to the Spice Shop and facing out on the corner of NW Couch Street, the popular and bargain priced Mountain View Diner, where she and Freddy had consumed countless juicy burgers and crisp French fries over the years.

_It was his life passion, helping people that medical science failed, and people who didn’t trust modern medicine. And he always hoped someday you’d come back to it._ Lionel’s soft voice echoed in her head.

“And I’m going back to what? Pharmacy tech? College, at this late date, to finish my pharmacology degree and test for my license while I’m piling up student loan debt, working behind Karel’s counter and living in that tiny apartment?” That future felt even bleaker than it had a few days ago before Freddy’s death had shattered her world.

But she had to hold herself together at least through the Skalengecks’ trials, which Nick had said would be months from now unless they copped a guilty plea – not bloody likely, even though Clint’s DNA was damning evidence.

Thinking hard, thinking about something she had never imagined she might be confronted with, she made her way back downstairs and into the main shop where she stood and looked around again.

“Freddy…can I do this? Am I up to it?”

She wanted desperately to feel his presence, have some supernatural assurance from him. But the shop was silent, empty of any presence but her own.

It was her decision to make. And maybe she could manage here for a while, long enough to see his killers convicted and know what their punishments would be. Going back to Seattle wasn’t the goal it had been when she arrived in Portland…could it be just two days ago?

There was a tentative tap on the shop’s front door, despite the flip sign showing it was closed.

She stood still for a moment, then went to answer it.

A man of middle years leaned against the doorway, unsteady on his feet. “Oh…hi, I’m looking for Freddy. It’s happening again – the vertigo. I barely made it here, the cab driver had to help me get to the door.”

“Freddy’s…I’m afraid Freddy passed away,” she told him.

“No!” The sick man looked stricken. “Oh, no! What am I going to do? The, ah, regular doctors can’t help me. Freddy always could. Is somebody else taking over? What happened to him?” He reeled on his feet, even while clinging to the doorway.

“Let me help you come in and sit down. I’m Freddy’s sister Rosalee.”

She drew his arm around her shoulders and put her other arm around his waist, helping the dizzy man into the shop and guiding him to a chair at the small café table by the front window.

He slumped there gratefully, holding onto the chair and the edge of the table so he wouldn’t tip over.

“Thank god, another Calvert. I’m Leroy Estes, I’ve been coming here for years.” He looked at her quizzically. “I don’t remember seeing you.”

“No, I’m…I live in Seattle. I’m here to handle Freddy’s affairs.”

“Freddy’s dead.” The sad reality settled on Leroy. “I’m so sorry for your loss. And for ours. I know so many people who depend on him. I don’t know _where_ we’re going to get help now.” He looked around at the nearly empty shelves. “You’re closing up? You’re not a…what Freddy and his folks were?”

Rosalee bit her lip. She felt compelled to help Leroy if she could. “I’m not as experienced as Freddy but I did train for the business. Let me pull your file and find out how he treated this; I’ll see what I can do.”

“I’m afraid it’s chronic. It’s an inner ear condition, flares up from time to time. It’s rare but Freddy tells me it’s a known Mauzhertz affliction.”

“That helps. I’ll go look.”

_Estes…Estes_. The files had more than one. She found Leroy’s file, a rather thick one, and took it out with her to spread open on the counter. “Oh…yeah, it’s here. Wow, you’ve had a rough time with this.”

“Worst thing is I never know when it’s going to happen again; there’s never any warning. So far I’m lucky it hasn’t happened while I’m driving.”

“I’m afraid you shouldn’t _be_ driving, then, even when you’re feeling okay.”

“That’s what Freddy said. I just moved to an apartment on a bus line closer to my work. But sometimes…” He cringed at her disapproving look. “I know. But it’s tough to give up your independence completely.”

“I understand, but still…well, it’s going to take me awhile to find all the ingredients with so much packed already, but I know where the delivery device is. You know how to use it…?”

“Yeah, yeah, the _assourdissant_. I feel like I should get one just to have on hand when…this happens, but Freddy said even he only has the one.”

She gave him a conspiratorial smile. “Well...it’s not like we can just order one from a medical supply catalogue.”

“If only.”

She ran her fingertip over the list of ingredients, thankful she’d mostly organized them alphabetically when packing them away. Moments later she was cutting the tape that sealed their boxes and pulling out the powdered herbs and extracts, then rummaging in wood crates for the marble mortar and pestle, scales and other tools she needed.

Leroy watched from across the room, both worried and grateful. Then he suddenly looked more distressed. “Oh, no…I’m sorry…it’s getting worse, I’m afraid I’m going to….” He quickly clapped his hand over his mouth.

Rosalee rushed to him with an empty box and got there just in time for the poor man to throw up in it. She held his head while he was vomiting, the vertigo giving him severe nausea.

When the wave of sickness passed, Leroy mopped his face and mouth with his handkerchief. “I’m so sorry.”

“You can’t help it.” She rubbed his shoulders in sympathy. “Are you better sitting up like this, or do you think you’d like to lie down?”

“Oh, god, no. When I’m like this, it makes me feel like my bed is spinning in a wind tunnel.”

“Got you. Okay. Hang on here then, I’ll leave the box in case it hits you again.   I’ll get you some water to rinse your mouth, and then I’ll put this together as fast as I can.”

She hurried to compound the medication and then poured it into a receptacle atop the rather steampunk-looking head harness that would deliver it slowly and deeply into Leroy’s ears. “I’m going to set you up in the treatment room where you can have some privacy while this is working. We don’t need to be trying to explain it to any kehrseiten who might come by looking for some herb tea.”

“No! No way.”

When she had him settled in a reclining chair, the harness in place and a plastic-lined wastebasket handy in case the nausea struck again, she went to make him a cup of ginger peppermint tea to sooth his stomach and to distract him while he waited for the treatment to complete.

Leroy’s relief and gratitude touched her deeply when she gave him the tea and sat with him to make sure he was starting to feel better.

“I’m sure glad you were…still here,” he said. “I’m not sure what to do now. Can you give me a referral to someone who can help me next time? I don’t think there’s anyone else in Portland, and the apothecary over in Beaverton retired last year.”

“I’ll make some calls.” _I need to call Karel anyway and let him know what’s going on_ , she thought. And then, _What is going on here, anyway?_

Seeing that Leroy was busy on his phone and apparently as comfortable as he could be, she went back out into the main shop, closing the Chinese blue doors to the treatment room almost completely and looking around again, thinking about Leroy’s predicament and hearing Monroe’s words repeat in her mind: “Not that many places _we_ can go any more.”

That reminded her of how alive, if terrified, she’d felt yesterday, dealing with Sergeant Wu’s life-or-death zaubertrank emergency when no one else could, and working with the Grimm and Monroe to capture Freddy’s murderers. She was starting to have a glimmer of understanding about Monroe’s “kind of complicated” situation, a Wesen helping a Grimm.

_Maybe I could…just stay on a little while. Try to do this until Freddy’s affairs are settled and the trials are over, if Karel will help me._ And Lionel had made it clear that she was welcome to stay on at Freddy’s place as long as she needed.

The prospect of returning to her Seattle job and apartment made her feel depressed now, and guilty for abandoning Freddy’s shop, his patients and his hopes that someday she’d be ready to join him working here.

Without completely acknowledging her decision, she began unpacking tools and equipment and restoring them to their rightful places, and started restocking the shelves.

She was up the shop’s library ladder organizing jars and bottles on an upper shelf when the shop bells rang. Apparently unless the door was locked, few people paid much attention to the “closed” sign. When she turned to see who was coming in, she was surprised to see Monroe…and surprised to feel how glad she was to see him. Feeling a smile light up her face, she said, “Oh, hey!”

“Hi.” He was standing there with something held behind his back. He thought that she looked lovely in her long blue plaid shirt that flared at the waist, low necked tee and jeans, perched up there on the ladder and looking down apparently pleased to see him.

She descended the ladder and met him by the main counter. To her surprise, he extended a very nice bouquet of bright flowers at arm’s length.

As she accepted it, he cleared his throat and said awkwardly, “Now…I know it’s not equal trade for my _life_ , but…I just wanted to say, I’m glad you know how to clock a dude with a brick.”

She sniffed the bouquet and smiled, touched and caught off guard. “Nobody’s given me flowers…for a _long_ time.”

They stood there in silence for a long moment after their exchange of nods and smiles until it began to feel awkward. Hands in his pockets, rocking on his heels, Monroe looked around.

“So, what’s goin’ on? I thought you were packing up?”

“Sort of…changed my mind.” She also gazed around the shop while Monroe gave a relieved sigh. “I had to stick around for the trial so I thought I’d keep the shop open, till I had to sell it. And I’d forgotten…” she looked directly at Monroe, “Portland’s a pretty nice place.”

Warmed by her words and that look, Monroe smiled. “Yeah, kinda grows on you. Well – I’ve got the rest of the day off, you know, if you need any help.”

“Sure.” She raised the bouquet. “I’ll put these in water.”

As she walked past on her way to the back room, Monroe looked after her, odd feelings stirring that he hadn’t had for a long time.

  

The afternoon passed quickly and companionably while they unpacked and restored the myriad apothecary supplies to their places. She directed his work without thinking about where most of it belonged; it was second nature, born of old habits she’d thought long forgotten.

In a few cases, though, she paused and reconsidered. “You know, I’ve always thought it would make more sense to organize the tea section by type and blend and by whether it’s medicinal or just a beverage. Of course there’s a lot of crossover….”

“You got me.” Monroe shrugged. “Just, wherever you want it.”

They were interrupted by a voice calling from the treatment room.

“Ms. Calvert?”                

“Be right there.” She put the tea cartons down and headed for the blue doors.

“There’s someone here?” Monroe had been so engaged in what they were doing, he hadn’t noticed the slight human/rodent scent lingering in the air.

“Sorry, yes, I have a patient I need to check on. Be right back.”

Monroe realized he was smiling at that; even before the shop was put back together, she was helping someone else.

She found Leroy sitting up straight on the recliner, looking a little anxious. “Am I almost done? After all the tea, I kind of need to…”

“Right. Let me check.” The liquid was almost gone from the assourdissant container. “You just have a few more minutes to go, but if you feel steady enough I can walk you to our bathroom.”

“That would be good.” He accepted her supportive arm gratefully, standing up slowly and waiting for a moment to test his balance. He took a tentative step forward, then another. “Okay, I think I can do this. Oh, this is _way_ better than when I came in.”

He was still a little shaky but was able to walk through the back area of the shop to the small bathroom with her there to steady him, unaware that there was anyone else but Rosalee in the shop.

When he came out he looked much relieved, and the assourdissant was empty. She had him sit on the recliner while she removed the contraption from his head and laid it on the heavy wooden worktable to await cleaning.

“Now, you can rest here awhile longer if you want to, or I can call a cab to take you home if you’re ready.”

“I think I’m okay to go home now, but I can call the cab, thanks.” He waved his phone.

“I wouldn’t advise going back to work today; tomorrow either if you’re still feeling shaky. If that happens, call me and I’ll bring the treatment to you.”

“A house call? In this day and age?” Leroy was happily surprised.

“Well, given the nature of your problem, sure.” She thought again and added, “Oh – unless I’m held up with something helping the police.”

“The police?”

“Ummm – Freddy. He was killed in a robbery here a couple of days ago. I saw the men who did it when they came back later to steal some more, so I’m a witness. The police caught them yesterday and told me to expect more questions while they’re working the investigation.”

Leroy’s eyes widened in dismay. “He was _killed?_ Oh, my god! Oh, I’m so very sorry.” This was big news and he knew several people he needed to call about it right away.

“It’s a huge shock.” She sighed. “So with all that going on, it looks like I’ll be around a while. Please let me know how you’re doing tomorrow, and call right away if it starts flaring up again.” She scribbled her cell number on a sticky note from a pack Freddy had left on the table.

“I will, I will.” He reached for his wallet. “Let me settle my bill before I call the cab.”

“Um, let’s do that later. Everything’s chaos here, I’m not really set up on the office side right now.” She had no idea what Freddy was charging for his treatments.

“Sure, that’s fine, just let me know.”

Monroe was down in the basement collecting more boxes when she helped Leroy out to the curb and into his taxi. “And _no driving_ ,” she admonished before closing the cab’s door.

By the time she was back inside, Monroe had stacked several wooden crates and boxes on the main counter and was dusting off his clothes.   “It’s a hell of a mess down there. The creeps really tossed the place. It’s like, the dust of ages spread all over everything. And given the breakage, I can only hope it’s just dust I’ve got on me.”

“Yeah, I was kind of surprised. Freddy was so fastidious about everything else. Just too many odd corners to keep up with, I guess. I already cleaned up anything that…well, people shouldn’t be exposed to.”

“That’s a relief.” He stood still for a moment, considering his next words. “What’re you going to do about the rest of the Jay?” He’d seen several cartons and loose jars of it still down there.

She turned abruptly to meet his very serious brown eyes. “I need to go through Freddy’s records and inventory how much he had on hand, so I can document how much his killers stole. Some of it’s at the police forensics lab. Soon as they say it’s okay, I’m packing what’s left off to the pharmacy where I work in Seattle; they can make legitimate use of it. And…I can’t have that stuff around me. Not in that unadulterated form especially.”

He nodded. “Good to hear.”

“Plus it’s obviously a target for a certain demographic I don’t want to encourage coming around here.”

“When you do that inventory…and I expect they want your info right away?” She nodded and he went on carefully, “Want some company while you’re working on that?”

She bristled a little, her expression darkening a moment, then shook off her defensiveness. “As in, ‘lead me not into temptation’?”

“Something like that. Let’s say I know a lot about triggers; I’ve got plenty of my own to watch out for. Sometimes it’s easier to deal with when someone else is around.”

She was silent a moment, giving him an assessing look. “You know, that’s really not a bad idea. Plus I’ll have another witness to my documentation.”

“You want to get it done tonight?” He was certainly direct. “I can stay. And I expect you’ve got a lot to do tomorrow arranging for his…memorial and all that.”

“I do. You’re right; I should get this over with and get that stuff out of here as fast as possible. Let me call my boss….”

She took out her phone and scrolled through her contacts to find Karel Sicinski’s personal cell number. It rang briefly before he picked up.

“Rosalee. How are you doing? What’s the latest?”

She went right to it. “Freddy was robbed because he had a big supply of pharmaceutical jacine at the shop. He must have been compounding with it. But I guess word got out to the wrong people or they just assumed he had some.”

“Are you okay?”

Listening, Monroe understood the varied meanings of the question.

“I’m holding up. And no, I’m not tempted but I need to get the stuff out of here for so many reasons. Could the pharmacy take it?”

“If it’s still sealed and uncontaminated and has proper provenance, yes.   Make out a shipping inventory and we’ll reimburse you the going rate. Anything that’s been opened, not safe to use, put it in a container marked for proper disposal and we’ll take care of that, too.” Karel was matter of fact, as if he’d been expecting a question like this. But then he added, “I wonder why he had a large supply? A little bit goes a very long way in any legitimate prescription.”

“I don’t know yet. Maybe he got a really great deal from a supplier or something. But there was enough here to last for, maybe, a decade of normal use.” Thinking in these terms she was perplexed at why Freddy had so much pure jacine, most of it sealed up in recently delivered cartons.

“Shall I send someone to help with that, and courier it back here?”

Monroe understood the layered meaning of that question, too.

“I actually have a helper for the inventory and to pack it up, I’ll be safe. But I will need a courier, of course; not exactly something to send through the mail or UPS.”

“Not exactly. Call me when you’re ready and I’ll send Gillian for it. She’s getting stir crazy stuck indoors too much anyway, she’ll jump at the chance to drive out there.”

“I’ll be glad to see her. Karel…I don’t know when I’ll be able to get back there. Things are pretty complicated, with the police investigation and the funeral and handling Freddy’s affairs.” She took a deep breath and finally said it. “I think maybe I need to keep the shop open for awhile, long as I have to be here. I’m finding out he had a lot of clients who have nowhere else to go. But I’ll need to lean on you for help when I run into things I don’t know how to handle.”

There was a brief silence from the Seattle end. Then Karel said gently, “Of course. Freddy would be very pleased. Are you okay for money, being off work for awhile?”

Both Karel and Monroe were surprised when Rosalee suddenly burst into tears. “Oh, Karel, I had no idea. Freddy told me there was some life insurance but…he left me a hundred thousand dollars. I can barely imagine that much money! So I’ll be fine for a long time even if I can’t make a go of running his shop. He left a note with the policy suggesting that I open a retirement investment account with most of it. That’s not a universe I _ever_ thought I’d be living in.”

“Very good, that will help you bridge the gaps while you’re sorting out your future. And once you’re settled, you should do exactly as he advised. I’m quite relieved.” Karel paused a moment. “Shall I hold open your position for awhile? What about your apartment?”

Calmer now, she said, “I don’t know; I’m paid through the end of the month. This is all happening so fast, I’m not ready to commit to so many drastic changes. But if you need to bring in a new tech, it’s not fair to everyone else to keep covering my shifts.”

“I only ask because the recovery program has some recent graduates needing a safe placement. Let me know when you’re ready. I suspect you’re about to have another graduation of your own.”

“That’s…kind of scary. But I hope you’re right. I hadn’t realized how much I missed Portland, and there are some very good and kind people here.” She glanced over at Monroe. But that triggered another thought. “Oh. And…there’s a Grimm.”

“I’ve heard. Just be careful. Word is he’s living there, not just passing through hunting.”

“He’s one of the detectives on Freddy’s case. I nearly died of shock when I realized. I was alone in the shop with him when he…saw me.”

Monroe waited for it; it took a split second.

_“What?!?”_

“He’s the one Freddy warned me about, the Grimm who came after him about the Geiers. But Freddy didn’t say he was a cop, too; maybe he didn’t know.”

“ _We_ didn’t know. Are you in danger?”

“Not from him. He’s…very different. He was tough with me to get my cooperation, but he’s the one who captured Freddy’s killers. It’s weird but he even has some Wesen friends here.” She looked at Monroe again and he nodded silently.

“That’s…very curious news. Is your helper Wesen, the one assisting you with the Jay?”

“Yes. He knows all about it, and he helped with catching Freddy’s killers, too. I’ll be safe with him.”

“Good. The sooner the better, then. Shall I have Gillian be there some time tomorrow?”

“Let me check with the police first to make sure I’m clear to dispose of it. I’ll call you the minute I know.”

“Right. Will you be staying on at Freddy’s place?”

“Yes. Indefinitely.” That reminded her that she needed to work out an agreement with Lionel; she hoped Freddy’s rent wouldn’t be too steep for her. Then she remembered the safety net of the insurance. “Thank you so much, Karel, for everything.”

“Pay it forward, my dear. We have to take care of each other.”

She smiled. “Yes, we must. Good bye.”

“That’s a mighty nice boss,” Monroe said when she’d clicked off.

“He’s wonderful. He’s helped me so much. He’s worked with Freddy for years, and with the…my detox and rehab program. I knew he’d be worried when I told him about the Jay.”

“So I’m your chaperone, so to speak.”

“So to speak.”

“Well, before we get started on all that, it’s after six and I’m getting pretty hungry. How about we go get some dinner first?”

“Ohhh, yeah, I could eat.” Her stomach grumbled in agreement. Those breakfast croissants with Lionel were many hours ago. “Mountain View Diner is just next door.”

“Ahhh. Um, there’s not much I can eat there but salad, and I need something a little more substantial.”

“Oh. What, are you gluten intolerant?” Just about everything at the diner came on a bun.

“Noooo, I’m…a vegetarian.” He waited for it.

“A _Blutbad_ vegetarian?” She didn’t mean to be rude but in her surprise it came out before she could think.

“You know those triggers we mentioned a little while ago? Meat’s one of mine. I’m a _wieder_ Blutbad. Had some impulse control issues so, had to work out a regimen to deal with that.” Feeling awkward but needing to get this over with, he looked toward the shop’s counter and the private area beyond. “That’s actually how I got to know Freddy. If you’re going to stick around and run the shop, you’ll come across a file on me back there, too. He filled some of my prescriptions that help with my control.”

“Oh. Good to know.” She blinked a couple of times taking that in. “Okay, so, where would you like to eat?”

 

Mediterranean food turned out to fill the bill. Rosalee was happy with kabobs and rice with tabbouleh, while Monroe chowed down on falafel, dolmas and a meatless moussaka. Between them they finished off the Greek salad, pita and garlic sauce.

She wasn’t surprised that he had a voracious appetite. “How long have you been doing this,” she waved toward his plate, “if it’s not too personal to ask?”

“A lot of years now. It works for me. I actually had to learn to cook but I found out I enjoy it. The only hunting I do any more is at farmer’s markets.” He smiled at her laughter.

“Wow. That’s a first for me.” She lowered her voice under the noise of other diners’ conversations and the clinking of utensils on plates. “Not that I’ve ever really known any Blutbaden before.”

“Well, let’s say I’m atypical. Kind of had to break the mold, so to speak. That’s how I got to know Nick at first. He was after a Blutbad who’d kidnapped a little girl, and at first he thought it was me; happened to catch an off-guard _woge_ while I was standing out in front of my house. Not the greatest ‘getting to know you’ experience.” Monroe shook his head at the memory. “Plus he was a newbie Grimm back then; the whole thing had just come over him and he barely knew what it was.”

“You’re lucky he didn’t kill you!”

“No kidding. At first I didn’t know he was a cop; I didn’t know _what_ was going on. But then he called for backup and pretty soon the place was swarming with police, so lots of witnesses. They figured out pretty fast that I wasn’t their guy but Nick wasn’t convinced. He came back after me that night and I had to roll him to get his attention; then we talked it out over a beer.” He sipped his craft IPA. “I had to set him straight about a lot of things.”

“Wow. Well, given what happened with me when I first met him, I’m sure glad you did. I still don’t know how he can be a cop and a Grimm.”

“Grimms gotta make a living, too. He was a cop and then detective for years before he got his Grimm on. And he’s too settled to lead the mercenary life; he’s got a really nice house and a _really_ nice live-in girlfriend. And in his way, he’s trying to help us. The, ah, good ones anyway.”

“But he must get into a lot of, let’s say, convoluted situations given his secret life. Like working out a plausible motive for what happened to Freddy.”

“Not as convoluted as what he went through taking down the Geier operation Freddy was involved with.” Monroe hesitated. “Uh, not sure what you know about that.”

“A little, and after the fact. Freddy was scared to death, more scared of the Grimm than of the Geiers; we canceled our Thanksgiving plans because he was afraid to have me visit in case the Grimm decided to come after him again. Like I told Karel, Freddy didn’t say he was a cop.”

“Yeah, well, Nick had to be more Grimm than cop on that one. They were killing street kids for their organs, working out of a storefront free clinic.”

“Oh, my god.” She felt a knot in her stomach. “I can’t imagine Freddy knew.”

“Nick said it was a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ thing. Otherwise he wouldn’t have let Freddy off with a cease-and-desist warning.”

“So this isn’t a…rare thing, you helping him with Wesen cases.”

Monroe sighed, worried this might nip their budding friendship. “Not my idea to start with; he just wouldn’t go away. He didn’t grow up with this stuff like we did; it hit him out of nowhere, and he didn’t have anyone else to ask questions.”

“Well, at least one of his parents had to be…”

“Orphan.”

“Ohhhh. That’s not good.”

“Marie Kessler was his aunt. But she didn’t tell him anything until, like, a couple days before she died.”

_“Kessler!”_ Rosalee was shocked. “One of the _Kessler sisters_?”

“The very same. I had the, uh, sort of pleasure of meeting her in the hospital ICU; guard duty again. Even eaten up with cancer and beat up by a Hässlich, lying on a bed and stuck full of tubes and monitors, she was scary as hell.”

“Wow.” It would take a while to absorb all this. “It’s been quite a ride then.”

“Yeah, one of those rides where you can’t get off. And, looks like you’re on your way to being a member of the club. He knows you’re a good resource now.”

“Ohhh, I don’t need that right now.” She shook her head, her brow furrowed with concern.

“Probably too late.” He glanced at his watch. “Speaking of late, we’d better go get that stuff packed up. I need to get some decent sleep tonight, I have a Bikram yoga class at six tomorrow morning.”

“You do hot yoga?”

“About twice a week. Gotta mix up the routines, you know. Pilates, cardio, yoga – helps me maintain.”

He insisted on paying for their dinner. “You can get it next time, after your insurance check comes in.” He sincerely hoped they’d have a next time.

 

There was a _lot_ of jacine to inventory. Fortunately most of it was still in its shipping cartons, the jars tightly sealed. Several empty cartons strewn around the floor had been raided by the robbers so she had a fairly accurate idea how much they’d taken.

“I’ll bet they paid for their trauminsel time with whatever wasn’t left behind when the cops raided their place,” Rosalee said darkly while they worked. “Sounds like they lost their paraphernalia when they got run out of their apartment so they needed some place to get their fix.”

“So, a BYOJ kind of deal?”

“No. No, they’d have to sell it to the dealers at whatever price they could get, and then pay market rate for the tickets like anybody else. Plus you’re paying for the, ah, trauminsel communal experience.” She shook her head, clearing it of those dangerous and seductive memories.

“Okay.” Monroe purposely turned the conversation. “Did he have any loose jars on the shelves down here, do you think? Was there any out on the shop floor?”

“Not that I saw, and I’ve really gone over the place. There are some medications on the shop shelves that have jacine in them but not in abusable form. Once it’s compounded with those other ingredients it can’t be distilled out again outside a major professional lab.”

“A doc gave me some tablets with Jay in them once when I wrenched my back really badly, I mean _major_ agony. It totally killed the pain but it knocked me on my ass.” He looked down at a box of the yellow stuff, several clear bottles secured in cardboard slots to keep them in place. “I complained about that but the doc said that was the idea, keep me off my feet for a few days so my back could heal. I couldn’t do anything but lie on the couch and watch Netflix. Soon as that was over, I took the leftover pills back to them and said I didn’t want any more of that stuff, no matter how much I was hurting.”

“Hmmm. Did it mess with your head or just block the pain and give you major lethargy?”

“My mind was clear, I just couldn’t get my body to do much of anything. It was kind of like being in a pharmacological straightjacket.”

They’d been tallying the jars while they talked, noting the weights and how many of each size, including those of the missing bottles in a separate column amd cross-referenced with Freddy’s purchase records.

“Yeah, that’s Jay all right, taken internally in small doses. Inhaled it’s a whole ‘nother story. I’m lucky I didn’t kill my poor liver or lose my mind completely. But it does mess you up permanently on a biochemical level, like so many addictions. You even touch the stuff in trace amounts, and it’s off to the races again.” She shook her head. “Even if I was facing surgery without any other anesthetic, I’d have to say no to Jay. It’s that dangerous.”

“So…even handling these sealed bottles is risky.”

“Sealed is okay…as long as we don’t drop any.”

He felt a shock run through his whole body at that.

“Okay, no, wait. I know we’re almost done, but why don’t you go sit far enough away that you’re totally safe, just in case, and you can supervise while I finish this and pack it all away?”

She knew it wasn’t actually a request. “Okay.”

“’Cause knowing that now…is making me so nervous I might accidentally break something that I wouldn’t have broken before.” His eyes were wide and he was being careful not to touch anything on the table.

She retreated to the basement stairs and sat halfway up. “Okay, I’m good.”

Monroe finished packing and sealing the boxes quickly, gathered up their inventory pages, and went to escort her back upstairs, a protective hand at her elbow. “Promise me you won’t go back down there alone, okay? I’ll come by again tomorrow and bring up anything else you might need to unpack for the shop, but until your friend comes and takes that stuff away…don’t take any chances.”

“Okay. I have an appointment at the funeral home first thing anyway, and I have to turn this paperwork in to the police and find out when I can ship this stuff to Seattle. And check on my patient from today, see if I need to stop by and give him another dose, and talk to Freddy’s landlord about taking over his lease…”

The to-do list was spinning through her head, seeming more daunting the more she talked about it while they made their way from the basement into the main shop area.

“I’m not sure I’ll even make it into the shop tomorrow. I need to talk to Freddy’s lawyer about transferring the business and the building into my name, and the property and liability insurance; I’m going to need certified death certificates for a lot of things, I wonder how long that’s going to take.” Her voice was getting higher and more strained as she rattled off more of the sudden responsibilities that had fallen to her. “I have to find out who his accountant is. And then there’s the bank, and before all that I need to call Aunt Lois to notify the rest of the family, and...oh, my god, I’m not sure I can do all this!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, take it easy.” Monroe led her over to the café table, held out a chair for her and then sat down beside her. “I’m going to share one of my mom’s favorite sayings for when things get overwhelming like this.”

Stressed and suddenly very tired, she looked at him expectantly, bracing for some bland traditional aphorism. He looked back smiling.

“It’s actually more of a Q&A. You ready?”

She nodded.

“How do you eat an elephant?”

Her brows crinkled in confusion. “What?”

His grin widened, brown eyes twinkling. “For real. How do you eat an elephant?”

“I have no idea…knife and fork?” His amusement was contagious, and she truly had no clue where he was going with this.

“Well, not exactly.” He held up an index finger. “Wait for it….”

She couldn’t help smiling now in anticipation. “Okay…”

“ _One_ bite at a time.”

She stared at him for a moment, mouth open, her cascading challenges derailed. He smiled back, finger still up, waiting, then raised his eyebrows at her and she cracked up, bowing over the table and laughing deep in her throat. Head down and nodding, her shoulders shook, and he chuckled along with her.

At first her laughter was almost giddy with relief, and by the time she calmed down she had mirthful tears in her eyes over her broad smile.

“You know what,” she gasped, resting her hand on his sleeve. “That is really very…good…practical…advice.”

“Right?” His even white teeth showed in his smile under his neat moustache.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. So, let me take you home now. You get some good sleep, call me if you need me, and when you look at tomorrow’s menu, remember…”

“One bite at a time. Got it.”

She was still giggling a little when he dropped her off at Freddy’s place. She could hardly wait to tell Lionel.

Right now, they could both use Monroe’s mother’s advice.


	2. Rosalee's Journey Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rosalee deals with the distressing aftermath of her brother's death and arranging a funeral that will draw much of the Wesen community...and the scary strangeness of working with a Grimm; Monroe's unexpected help and friendship help her cope. Events occur that start to change her mind about returning to her life in Seattle.

 

**Chapter Two**

 Rosalee set out bright and early the next morning after another breakfast with Lionel, this time a scramble with sides of bacon that she’d cooked from supplies in Freddy’s well-stocked refrigerator.   With everything she was facing today, she knew she needed a substantial meal to see her through.

Steeling herself against her aversion to entering police facilities, she stopped to see the Grimm and his partner first. Hank stood to greet her when she was ushered to their desks.

“Good morning,” he said, solicitous and courtly. “How’re you doing?”

“I guess, as well as can be expected. I’m just so relieved you have those men in custody.” She took the guest chair he indicated.

“Yeah.” Hank smiled his dark cop smile. “They’re not going anywhere for a long time. Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

Nick raised an eyebrow at his partner. “What on earth did she do to deserve _that?_ ” The sideways smile that followed told her he was teasing.

“Okay, so we aren’t serving Stumptown here,” Hank admitted, grinning back and giving Rosalee a wink. “It’s not that bad…not yet anyway. Give it another hour or so, though….”

“I could actually use another cup of coffee,” Rosalee said. “It’s going to be quite a morning. So much to do.” They were being cordial and accommodating so she made an effort to be pleasant, too.

“Sugar, creamer? Just plain, no flavored stuff, I’m afraid.”

“Both, please, that’ll be fine.” She smiled up at him as he turned to get her a cup and refill his own. Then she met Nick’s now-serious eyes. “Is everything…okay, so far?”

“So far. Investigation will be ongoing for a while. And if they don’t plea out, they’ll have public defenders assigned and we’ll have to go through the whole discovery and deposition process.” He paused and looked at her meaningfully. “That can get tricky sometimes. People can see and remember things differently, especially over time.”

She sighed and nodded her understanding. “How’s the one I hit?”

“Better than he deserves. Still in the jail hospital ward but expected to recover. Vickers wanted to file assault and battery charges against you for his scratches but he was, ah, persuaded to let that go.”

“Thank you.” Chagrined, she said, “I lost control, I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Understandable under the circumstances, but no. Impressive, though. Not what I’d expect from a…woman like you.”

“It’s not just my time on the streets. Some of _us_ are very protective of our families…and vindictive when someone’s harmed one of our own.”

“Some of _you_ are better equipped to do that than other people.” His blue eyes were stern. “Try to avoid reacting that way in the future.”

“Yeah.” She pulled a file folder from her deep leather purse. “I brought the inventory. Monroe helped and we both signed off as witnesses on the records. And just for good measure I took pictures of the contents of every box and loose jar, and the cartons they’d emptied. I don’t know if your people already did that. I hope that’ll be enough?”

Nick leafed through the documentation, nodding. “Very thorough.” He handed the file to Hank when his partner brought the coffees.

“I’d like to get that stuff out of the shop as soon as possible,” Rosalee said. “When can I do that?”

“Isn’t it some kind of serious poison?” Hank asked. “Maybe a hazmat disposal?”

“It can be, but it’s not illegal and in very small amounts it’s used in some alternative medicine formularies as a potent non-opioid pain killer. The specialty pharmacy where I work in Seattle is willing to take it; they know how to handle it and they’ll properly dispose of any that’s been contaminated. You don’t want it getting out in the environment unless it’s been neutralized.” She’d rehearsed that speech last night and again on her way over this morning.

“Maybe we need to pass that word along to our lab so they’ll know what to do with the stuff they had for testing. And whoever has chain of custody for the evidence samples. What’s it made of again?” Hank asked.

“It’s derived from an obscure mold, kind of like penicillin only its properties aren’t antibiotic; it acts on the nervous system. The active chemical’s called jacine.” She sipped her coffee gratefully; it wasn’t as harsh as she’d expected. “Even in herbal apothecary circles it’s not widely known.” _Not at all among the human practitioners_.

“You seem to know a lot about this stuff.” Hank nodded as he studied the inventory and scanned the pictures.

“I grew up in the family business, trained for it myself but…took a different path for awhile.” She looked from one man to the other. “So, when can I ship the jacine to Seattle? They’ll send a courier, it shouldn’t go through the mail.”

“I’ll make a call,” Hank said, and proceeded to do so.

“What about the other poisons we tested in your brother’s stock?” Nick asked.

“None of them pose the same kinds of risks as jacine. And they all have legitimate uses in herbal or homeopathic remedies.”

“Nothing addictive.” His eyes burned into her.

“Almost anything can be addictive.” She waved her paper coffee cup. “Sugar, caffeine, alcohol, nicotine…all of them legal.”

Hank raised his coffee mug and tapped it against her cup. “Point taken.” He put his phone down. “Okay – they said as soon as our people in evidence look the inventory over and give the all-clear, we’ll give you a call.”

She sighed and shook her head. “So, not yet.”

“Shouldn’t be long. You going back to Seattle soon, too?” Hank asked.

“Not...for awhile. My brother had a lot of devoted clients, I’m finding out, a lot of people depending on him for their alternative health care. Not to mention all the people who just enjoy buying their tea and cooking spices from a shop that has so much…character, plus the Christmas run on frankincense and myrrh.” _And not to mention the occasional practicing Hexenbiest,_ she thought.

Those clients had always given her the shivers; when she was little she’d go hide in another room until they were gone.

“And there’s a customer base of people practicing pagan and Native American religions who buy their ritual supplies from us, too.”

“In Portland?” Hank raised an eyebrow and smiled. “What a surprise.”

She smiled back. “So for now I think I’m going to try to keep it open, run it the best I can, at least until the trials are over. He left me the business and the building so there’s a lot of estate and legal stuff I need to see through, too.”

The memory of Sergeant Wu’s bizarre affliction fresh in his mind, Nick said, “Well, maybe that’s for the best. Good luck to you.”

Leroy Estes called while she was walking to her bus stop after leaving the precinct. He was feeling fine, calling from his bus on the way to work; so, no need to haul the assourdissant across town for a house call. She sighed with relief after his call – one less bite of elephant on her plate today.

 

The next stop was less intimidating but more emotionally challenging. Snug in her blue plaid coat and muffler in the brisk morning’s chill, she took a TriMet bus to a peaceful commercial district on Southeast Belmont near the Lone Fir Cemetery and walked two blocks to the very respectable vine covered brick building that had housed Lamb and Sons Mortuary and Funeral Home for many decades.

It was much like any very traditional funeral home, unless you knew what to look for. Its solemn and vaguely Victorian décor included quite a number of pastoral paintings featuring peaceful flocks of grazing sheep in rolling green pastures, a folk art Noah’s Ark…and a particularly impressive 19th century oil of a lion lying down with a lamb. That was the perfect icon for the true nature of their family’s business.

It wasn’t one of the Seelengut Lamb sons she met for her appointment, but one of the daughters, Agnes Lamb-Ramsey. Rosalee did not envy her the antique first name.

Agnes was a self-possessed woman in her early thirties, well versed in serving the needs of the bereaved. Her tailored gray wool suit dress reflected the solemn nature of her calling.

She met Rosalee at the front desk and guided her to a private meeting room with dark wood furniture and numerous boxes of tissues placed strategically throughout the room. It also featured sample materials and fonts for the headstones and monuments available.

As they sat down, Agnes leaned close and placed a sympathetic hand on Rosalee’s coat sleeve. “We are sincerely sorry for your loss, Miss Calvert, especially in such tragic circumstances. We’ll do our best to help this be as painless as possible.”

“Thank you.” Rosalee accepted the bottled water Agnes placed by her on the table.

“Your brother, indeed, all your extended family have long been very esteemed and respected members of our community. We are privileged that you’ve been with us for so many...generations.” Agnes sat down across from her. The formalities observed, she opened the leatherette binder on her desk. “Your brother’s pre-need arrangements are quite complete. That must be a comfort to you.”

“Yes. Freddy was very…thoughtful and organized that way. He arranged everything he possibly could, before the fact. I need to know how soon we can schedule his service.” The last words were painful to speak but Rosalee kept her composure.

“His friend already brought his wardrobe for the burial. For now, we’re waiting for the coroner’s office to release him to us.” Agnes spoke as carefully as she could about these difficult matters. “Then we can set the time for the viewing in our slumber room, and the service. Will there be a church, or…?”

“He didn’t belong to one. I need to find a venue for the memorial he wanted; no idea how large a place, or where…” Despite herself, Rosalee heard her voice thicken and felt her throat close. “He wanted certain music and readings so we can’t risk doing everything outside…in case it rains.”

Agnes quietly handed her some tissues for the tears that had escaped the corners of her eyes. “It will need to be sizable. We’re already receiving discrete inquiries about your plans for the service. He will be very much missed.” She flipped a page in her binder and turned it to face Rosalee. “We took the liberty of suggesting a number of appropriate places…”

“Thank you.” Rosalee scanned the list and the printed photos of each location.

“Of course you may want to consult with your mother and sister.”

Rosalee’s expression hardened. “No. They’re in Medford. Freddy wanted me to handle this.”

Agnes regarded her solemnly. “I understand. These occasions can be very difficult for families.” Then she added, rather pointedly, “We missed you at your father’s service several years ago.”            

 _What did she mean by that? Did she know why I wasn’t there?_   She carefully considered her words before responding. “It broke my heart that I wasn’t able to travel at the time. His death was so unexpected.”

Agnes nodded, her expression unreadable. “Of course.” She leaned across the table just far enough to point out one of the venues, a turn of the century former women’s club with a large hall and ornate ceilings. “This may be the most suitable. We can also recommend a string quartet as he’d requested…”

 

Rosalee was wrung out emotionally by the time she’d completed the arrangements and signed the contracts, but the worst was over. She stood huddled in her coat waiting for the bus that would take her back across the river to downtown, and then connect with another bus up to the Spice Shop.

Her phone rang. She didn’t recognize the number. “Hello?”

“Hope you don’t mind, I got your cell from Nick when I couldn’t reach you at the shop.” Monroe’s voice came through the phone and she realized she still had his card in her jeans pocket.

Despite her sadness, she felt the beginning of a smile tug at her lips. “No, no, I’m glad you did. I wasn’t thinking last night, I should have given you my number.”

“So, how’re doing? How many elephant bites so far this morning?”

She gave a soft, stressed laugh. “Two big ones. Kind of hard to swallow.”

“You want to tell me about them? Over lunch maybe? I’m heading over your way to drop some deliveries off at the post office and then pick up a new patient to take home with me.”

“I’m actually in the Southeast right now, on Belmont waiting for my bus. It’s going to be awhile before I can make it back.”

“Hey, no problem. I’m coming from Homestead, I can just pop over the Hawthorne Bridge from here, swoop you up and take you back, or we can hit the food cart pod on Hawthorne and 12th…something for everybody there if you’re up for it.”

“Oh, you don’t have to come all that far out of your way.”

“Not that far,” which she knew wasn’t quite true, “and anyway, lunch by myself again isn’t much of a treat. Where are you exactly?”

 

They ended up wandering through the food cart pod for nearly half an hour, enjoying some strong coffee from a local micro-roaster while making comment on the more peculiar menu items some carts had on offer before they made their selections and took them to enjoy at a nearby park.

Sitting on a bench together not far from where his vintage yellow Beetle waited, Monroe and Rosalee ate and talked about her conversation with Nick and Hank that morning and the difficult meeting with Agnes Lamb.

Monroe approved of the women’s club venue for the service. “I’ve been to a few recitals and concerts there. They have very nice acoustics, for strings in particular.”

‘Oh…you’re into classical, then?”

“Among other things. I was pretty serious about my cello for a long time, so I can appreciate a nice place for good musicians to play.”

She regarded him with interest as she popped a curly sweet potato fry into her mouth. “Wow. A vegetarian wieder Blutbad cellist and clock…smith?”

“Horologist is the technical term but that doesn’t mean anything to most regular folk. And don’t forget Grimm consultant, though that’s not something that’s wise to advertise.”

“Yeah. That’s…that’s kind of risky. I guess I need to be careful about that, too, unless I’m going to drop off his radar once Freddy’s case is off his desk.”

“Don’t count on that. Especially since you saved his sergeant.”

“Yeah, well, that was kind of a weird one-off thing.”

“Maybe. That’s what I thought when all this started, too.”

Rosalee decided she didn’t want to think about that right now. “So…how do you get into the clock business? Are there places you go to school for that, or…?”

Monroe winced a bit. “There are, but not many here in the States, and they tend to deal with the most basic basics. I come from a long line of clock folks on both sides going back, well, centuries, most of them German, along with a bunch of antiquarians of various stripes. Kind of like your deal, growing up in the family business. You mostly learn from the experts you grow up with.”

“Well, we’ve had to make some concessions to modern times and go to school for some kind of credentials. Liabilities and all that, have to skirt that fine line about practicing medicine without a license. I followed Freddy getting my biology degree and I was getting close to the masters in pharmacology when…my life went south.”

“Wow. You’re one _smart_ foxy lady, then.”

She sighed. “Not smart enough to keep from nearly throwing my life away, spinning down the rabbit hole, so to speak.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve got no room to talk there, either.”

They ate in silence for a moment.

“So…you went straight from high school into the clock business?”

“No. No, I went to college and grad school back east, near where I’m from. Might as well call it esoteric studies, lots of subjects I was interested in, but in the end I went right back to the clocks. I don’t regret a _minute_ of it, though.” He glanced sideways at her to see if she got the miniscule clock joke, and was gratified to see her smile while she applied herself to her bacon roquefort burger.

“So how’d you end up here in Portland?” she asked, after she swallowed.

“It was about as far as I could get from the northeast and still stay on the continent this side of Canada.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“And it’s...you know, Portland.”

Her smile returned. “Okay.”

“So, what’s left on the menu today? You going back to the shop?”

She sighed, the smile fading again. “I guess I should. There’s not a whole lot else I can do on the legal side until I get the death certificates. And…I have to make that terrible call to my aunt and let her know what’s happened, and ask her to notify everyone else.”

“Your aunt? There’s no one else closer?”

“Not speaking to me. I burned a lot of bridges.”

“Oh.” He got it. “Sorry…I mean, really.”

She nodded, looking down. “It’s going to be rough. Freddy left everything to me, including the responsibility to see him off properly. I’m not sure what’s going to happen at the funeral, but let’s say I’m not expecting any grand reconciliations.”

“I am…truly, so sorry.”

She looked over at him, this very unexpected new ally. “Will you be there?”

“If I’m welcome, sure.”

“I’d like that. It would help. Between you and Freddy’s old friend Lionel, I think maybe I can just get through this.”

 

The Spice Shop and Lamb Mortuary were overflowing with flowers soon after Freddy’s obituary and date of service were published. Word had spread rapidly through the Wesen communities here and abroad; Rosalee was grateful and a little alarmed at how widely known he was.

There was even a fine standing arrangement delivered to the funeral home just before Freddy’s viewing with a mysterious card postmarked from Belgium: “Rest Well, Dear Colleague” and signed, “DeGroot & Associates”.

As family, Rosalee arrived with Lionel earlier than the official start of the late afternoon and evening viewing. It was customary to give close relatives some private time alone with their deceased.

Agnes ushered them quietly into the “slumber room” and left them alone with the open casket. They clung to each other as they walked over and looked down at Frederick Calvert’s mortal remains.

The mortuary had taken good care of him; he truly did appear to only be asleep, eyes closed, face composed, not a hair out of place and his hands folded at mid chest on his well-tailored suit jacket. They’d even pinned a white rosebud to his lapel. The bottom section of the casket was closed, obscuring him from the waist down.

Rosalee was deeply grateful that she hadn’t had to identify his body in the morgue with its fatal gunshot wounds.

Lionel stared down at his beloved friend and to her surprise, became very agitated. At last he said, “This isn’t right!”

Rosalee patted his arm. “I know.”

“No, I mean…on so many levels. I can’t let him go like this!”

Rosalee was shocked and disturbed when Lionel reached into the casket and began fumbling with Freddy’s tie and collar. “Lionel! What are doing?”

“No – he wouldn’t be happy with this.”

She realized then that he’d loosened Freddy’s tie and was retying it with a different style of knot.

“There. That’s better, that’s his way.” Lionel smoothed the tie back in place and carefully tucked it under Freddy’s vest beneath his folded hands. Then, voice hoarse with emotion, he laid a hand on Freddy’s shoulder. “I miss you, old friend, my brother. I miss you so much.”

He gave Freddy’s shoulder a pat and withdrew his hand. They both gazed down at the still form awhile longer.

“He’s gone,” Lionel said, finality in his voice.

Rosalee studied her brother’s features for the last time – his thick black hair and neatly trimmed beard, lightly sprinkled with silver; forehead smooth, face in relaxed repose, his wit and intelligence…and his many secrets…now extinguished.

Memories of their childhood played through her mind: the pranks, the days of freedom playing in the wild; the hours of quiet study while their parents worked at the shop; the exuberant Christmas celebrations that ended when she was seven. And his shock when she responded to his mock horror, then laughter at her first _woge_ by biting his ankle with her sharp new Fuchsbau teeth.

That last memory made her smile just a little.

Like Lionel, she felt compelled to touch him one last time. She cupped the side of his face in her hand, stroked his beard and trailed her fingertips down his chest over his vest and jacket, bringing her hand to rest over his folded ones.

She gave his cold hands a gentle squeeze. “I’ll miss you at Thanksgiving especially.”

Lionel hugged her around her shoulders while she said goodbye.

“I’m not, never will be in your league,” she told her brother. “But I promise I’ll do the best I can to take care of your shop and your people. Our people.” With that she patted his hands and withdrew hers.

“May _All That Is_ bless and keep you, Fred. You were a fine man and an excellent friend.” With that Lionel nodded, closed his eyes and turned away, Rosalee on his arm as they took their leave.

 

Lamb and Sons (and daughters) lived up to their reputation. When the sad day came, everything ran smoothly. The memorial service venue was filled to overflowing, the music was beautiful, the readings and eulogy done by the friends and colleagues Freddy had designated were painfully perfect. Rosalee was deeply grateful Freddy hadn’t assigned any to her.

It seemed that everyone respectable in the greater Portland region’s Wesen communities was in attendance. The service being on a weekday there were few children present. And there were even fewer kehrseiten, all but Lionel being kehrseite-schlich-kennen.

Lionel stayed with her through the whole ordeal, solemn and solicitous in his finely tailored dark suit and oblivious to the emotional first-stage _woges_ that rippled through the crowd of mourners from time to time. Monroe sat on her other side feeling a bit out of place but determined to stay close to his new and presently fragile friend.

Detective Burkhardt wisely stayed far away from this Wesen gathering. He was focused on important plans of his own brewing for the upcoming weekend getaway with his girlfriend, soon to be fiancée (he hoped) Juliette. And Hank Griffin was sinking deeper into his potion-induced obsession with Adalind Schade.

Freddy’s mother Gloria Calvert and now twice-divorced sister DeEtta kept their distance from Rosalee throughout the memorial and the graveside service as they laid Freddy to rest beside his father. The two women refused to even look at her.

Rosalee bore it stone-faced when they and other relatives gathered on the opposite side of Freddy’s grave for the lowering of the casket, leaving her alone to stand with her hand resting in the crook of Lionel’s arm and Monroe standing close but not touching her. With their Wesen hearing they overheard, and fortunately Lionel did not, DeEtta explaining acidly to bystanders that the older man standing with her sister was “Freddy’s pet human”.

And then it was over. She’d done all she could do for Freddy, except her best to keep his life’s work going.


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Freddy's funeral and aftermath, interwoven with scenes from "The Thing With Feathers" as Rosalee finds her way through her grief and fears to a new life in Portland...with a special new friend, Monroe. And finds herself further involved with Portland's unusual Grimm...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sys, I think you'll recognize some of your influence on this installment.... ;)
> 
> As always, I own nothing related to our beloved Grimm TV series and include bits of its episodes only as needed to frame the behind the scenes stories that I'm imagining. All honor, glory and ownership to the people who created this wonderful show!

 

**Chapter Three**

Once the formal graveside service had ended, Rosalee found herself standing near Gloria and DeEtta as mourners came over to give all the Calverts their condolences and reminisce about times Freddy had helped them and their families.

Lionel knew only too well of the sad tensions between the surviving Calvert women and the strain his mother’s and sister’s estrangement from Rosalee had put on Freddy. Gentleman that he was, Lionel was determined to do what he could to broker at least a temporary peace on behalf of his dear lost friend.

He placed himself on Rosalee’s left between her and her mother while Monroe stood protectively on her right. Monroe and Rosalee exchanged glances, wary that Lionel was the only kehrseite present and that he was completely unaware of the true nature of everyone else gathered around them.

“I hope everyone knows to, you know, _maintain_ ,” Monroe said softly to her while Lionel was distracted talking to Agnes Lamb-Ramsey, telling her about his “necessary indiscretion” retying Mr. Calvert’s tie in the knot that Freddy had preferred.

“Outdoors in a public cemetery, I sure hope so,” she murmured back. Then she took a sharp breath and her eyes widened a bit when Lionel turned to the other Calverts present.

“Gloria,” he said kindly, reaching out to clasp her hand and hold it with courtly sympathy. “Such a sad, sad day. How are you holding up, dear lady?”

Gloria’s composure slipped for a moment. “Just barely, Lionel.” Tears brimmed and she dabbed them away with a small handkerchief. “Even seeing him lying in the casket, it’s so hard to believe we’ve lost him. It’s all so _senseless_.”

To Monroe’s surprise, Gloria stepped close to Lionel and put her arm around him, her other hand clutching her handkerchief. He drew her close and she rested her head against his chest for a moment, taking comfort in her son’s stalwart longtime friend’s strength and caring. Eyes closed, she let some of the repressed tears escape and trickle down her cheeks, her face hidden from view in the solicitous man’s embrace.

“Thank you for always being there for him,” she said, her voice soft and strained. “And for helping with all of…this. Agnes said you chose his burial clothes and brought them to her. That must have been awfully hard for you.”

“It was…emotional,” Lionel agreed, stroking her back. “But you know how our Freddy always wanted to look his best. It was the least I could do, to honor his request.”

A single soft sob escaped from Gloria before she mustered her control. “It’s so true! He was very particular, even from a young age….”

“That he was.” While he held and comforted Freddy’s mother, Lionel looked beyond her at DeEtta. “Mrs. Alderson, I am so very sorry about your brother.”

They had never been on friendly terms, DeEtta’s choice. She’d never understood or approved of her brother’s long, close friendship with this kehrseite.

“It’s Ms. Calvert again,” DeEtta corrected, a bit stiffly. “No more Alderson. And thank you.” Gloria turned to give her a warning look and DeEtta resigned herself to be polite to the human. “I know you two were friends a long time, and you’ll miss him.”

“Very much,” Lionel said, nodding. “Very much.”

“I suppose we need to clear out his apartment right away so you can rent it to someone else.”

Gloria looked shocked at DeEtta’s unfeeling remark; Rosalee turned her head so that only Monroe could see and rolled her eyes, mouth tight.

But Lionel took that as his cue. “Not any time soon, Ms. Calvert. Your sister will be staying on indefinitely, at least through the conclusion of the trials.”

At that he turned and drew Rosalee over to their threesome, as if pretending he didn’t know of their estrangement. “We’ve been a great comfort to each other since this awful tragedy struck. And despite the shock and grief, she’s done a valiant job of handling his affairs and arranging for his funeral.”

Monroe watched, bracing for an ugly scene while Rosalee stood tensely at Lionel’s side, his arm around her shoulders.

For a long pained moment, mother and daughter looked into each other’s eyes. Then Gloria nodded. “You’ve done well for him,” she said. “Thank you.”

“What, she’s just going to squat there for months?” DeEtta asked, then directly at Rosalee, “What about your Seattle job and apartment? Your sober living watchdogs? How long do you think you can last _this_ time before you’re right back to it again, blowing everything Freddy left you on drugs and so-called boyfriends?”

“DeEtta!” Gloria said, distressed.

“Good to see you again, too, sis,” Rosalee said, voice flat. “Thanks for your support.” But to her mother, she said simply and honestly, “Thank you, Mom.”

“Rosalee is hardly ‘squatting’,” Lionel said, pretending the rude remark was an awkward joke. “She’s taking over Freddy’s lease while she works out her options.”

That was good news to Monroe; he was a bit surprised just _how_ good.

“And I am very, very glad to have her living there,” Lionel continued. “We’ve grown to know each other much better during this difficult time. I’m in no hurry for a change of tenants, believe me.”

“I’m taking things one….” She glanced at Monroe and caught herself before saying ‘bite’, “…step at a time. Karel Sisinski’s helping me so much. If I can’t manage keeping the shop open, I know he’ll help me find work back in Seattle. And believe me, my apartment there is nothing special.” The rest of DeEtta’s barbed challenge she refused to answer.

“Karel’s one of the best,” Gloria said. “It’s good to know that he’ll be watching over you. We’re having dinner with him tonight at our hotel before we all leave in the morning.” But there was no hint of including Rosalee in that dinner.

Monroe closed his eyes, hurting for his Fuchsbau friend. She was right, there would be no grand reconciliation. But that being so, it was a relief to hear that these other Calverts would be away from Portland by tomorrow.

Lionel understood that this was as good as it was going to get for now but at least they were talking to each other, a little bit. He hadn’t expected much different from DeEtta and wasn’t at all surprised to hear that she’d divorced and changed her name again.

“It’s good to know you’ll be in the company of a friend tonight,” he told Gloria. “Freddy spoke very highly of Dr. Sisinski.”

The Calverts all exchanged brief knowing glances, thinking that Lionel had no idea of the strange extent of Karel Sisinski’s medical practices.

By now most of the people were leaving, some lingering at graveside to say their own quiet farewells to Frederick Calvert. There were some emotional _woges_ again, but discrete and invisible to human eyes.

Agnes came over to his surviving family. Addressing Rosalee and Gloria she asked, “What would you like us to do with all the floral arrangements? They may remain here for a few days, of course, but if you’d like to take any with you….”

Mother and daughter looked at each other silently a moment; then Rosalee raised her eyebrows. Gloria nodded once and turned to Agnes. “I believe DeEtta and I would like to take some back with us to Medford. It’s wonderful how many lovely arrangements people sent; it helps to see that so many people cared. We’ll select a few and take them to our car.”

She looked back at Rosalee, not for permission but for agreement, and her youngest daughter nodded. Then, to Lionel, her gratitude sincere, “Thank you again for being so good to him.” She stepped back from his embrace, squeezing his hand and taking leave of him and his friendship with her son.

Then she said briefly to Rosalee, “Take care of yourself. Be strong.”

DeEtta started to open her mouth but Gloria took her firmly by the arm and turned her away, walking back to the graveside to choose which flowers to take home with them.

Lionel took a resigned breath and watched them go, then shook his head sadly. “Ah, well.”

Rosalee slid her hand into his. “Hey, at least you got them to acknowledge my existence.”

“A mixed blessing,” he said. “I can’t help feeling that left to herself, Gloria wouldn’t be so…distant.”

Monroe had moved closer when the Medford Calverts walked away. “Gotta say, your sister seems like a real piece of work.”

Rosalee turned to include him in their conversation. “That’s one way to put it.” She looked from him to Lionel before staring out across the grounds at her sister’s retreating back. “Love the way she called _me_ out about addiction when her devotion to the bottle has cost her two husbands and several good jobs.”

“That was very cruel of her,” Lionel said, about the harshest thing Rosalee recalled hearing from him.

“Wait, she’s a total _lush_ and she’s dissing you when you’ve been clean for years?” Monroe asked.

Lionel noted that Rosalee’s friend knew that part of her history; he wondered if she’d known him before her struggles with addiction. Freddy had told him she was cut off from all contact with anyone she’d known here from her lost time.

“Oh, yeah. After Dad died and her last marriage was on the rocks, she moved in supposedly ‘helping’ Mom, playing the martyr about giving up her freedom.” Rosalee’s tone was hard. “What I suspect is, she lost her sales rep jobs because of her drinking. Now she makes dental appliances at home…Mom’s home.”

“Do I detect a possible whiff of enabling?” Monroe ventured, knowing from his therapy how common that was, often with the best if misguided intentions by the enabler. “If I’m not out of line saying….”

“That’s how Freddy saw it,” Lionel said. “DeEtta’s move was supposed to be temporary, so Gloria wouldn’t suddenly be alone in that house all the way down in Medford. But this has gone on for a long time now.”

“Yeah, Freddy told me at first she moved in with her husband, but then that went sour and Mom got sick of their constant fighting,” Rosalee said. “So she told them to knock it off and get counseling or move out. The husband left. Then DeEtta lost her latest sales job…said she was laid off, the company was downsizing, but…”

“Freddy didn’t believe it,” Lionel finished.

“Family.” Monroe shook his head. “Things sure can get complicated.”

“How did you know Freddy, Mr. Monroe?” Lionel asked, remembering their brief introduction before the service. “He had such a wide and varied acquaintance.”

“Just Monroe, please. I was a customer at his shop, one of the many.”

“And you know Rosalee…?”

Monroe recognized a protector’s enquiry. “I, ah, consult with the police from time to time and met Rosalee in the course of the investigation.” He hoped that sounded straightforward yet vague enough to satisfy and deflect further questions.

“Monroe’s too modest,” Rosalee said, knowing Lionel would press for more details. “He helped them track down the killers at some kind of rave; he was there when I identified them for the detectives. And he’s been a great help to me putting the shop back in order after everything that happened there.”

“Well…all I can say is thank you,” Lionel told Monroe sincerely. “This would be even more difficult to bear if those criminals were still at large.”

“Those were some seriously dangerous dudes and the cops were determined to get them off the streets fast before they robbed and killed anyone else,” Monroe said. “They kind of called in a lot of…special expertise on this case.”

Again Rosalee was impressed with the way her new friend could spin a plausible cover story, the best ones having a core of truth. And fortunately he didn’t elaborate too much on this one.

They could see that Lionel was quietly assessing what their relationship might be.

Then he surprised them both. “Perhaps I could persuade you to join us for dinner tonight back at Freddy’s apartment? We could share some stories about him.”

They each felt their eyes widen slightly; that was a level of risky awkwardness they needed to avoid right now around this inquisitive kehrseite.

“Um, thank you, that’s…that’s very kind,” Monroe said. “But I’m, ah, otherwise engaged tonight.” _Yeah, hiding out at home and hoping Nick doesn’t call for something else._  “And I wouldn’t want to intrude on family at a time like this.”

Lionel smiled. “I’m not really family….”

But Rosalee interrupted. “To me, you are.” Then to her Blutbad friend, aiding his escape, “Thanks so much for being here today. It really helped; I didn’t feel so alone, just now back in Portland and facing so many people I don’t know. You and Lionel really helped me get through this.”

With a pretense of formality, in keeping with their cover story, Monroe reached out and shook her hand, then Lionel’s, grateful for his escape…and grateful that Rosalee would have Lionel’s company tonight. “You’re welcome,” he told her, and urged gently, “If there’s anything I can do to help, anything at all, call me.”

 

At dinner with Lionel back at the apartment, she almost asked him if over the next week he’d help her go through Freddy’s things in his room and decide what to do with all his clothes and personal effects.  But then she realized there was no telling what kinds of damning evidence of his secret life she might uncover in his most personal space – evidence that Lionel must never see.

She was a little afraid she’d find things that she’d rather not know about, either.

“That Monroe seems like a nice fellow,” Lionel said, having waited to bring up the subject until they were finishing their meal. “It’s kind of an odd way to make a new friend, someone helping the police on Freddy’s case. You didn’t know him at all before?”

Rosalee had been expecting some questions in that direction and she was ready. “No, I didn’t, and yes, it is odd. He’s the one the detective sent over here to protect me that night and later he was involved with the arrests, still there when I had to identify the suspects. So we’ve had some time to get to know each other a bit and he’s been really helpful at the shop; he’s been encouraging me to keep it open instead of selling up right away.” _Encouraging_ was certainly the right word…helping her find the courage to take this on.

“He has a very flexible schedule, then.”

“Apparently.”

“Well, it was good of him to stand with us at the burial. Did he know about the…strain between you and your family?”

“I warned him that it was going to be tense, yes, when I asked if he could be there today. I felt like I needed someone else on my side along with you.”

“Except for your family, everyone in attendance was on your side. Truthfully, I was a bit overwhelmed by how many people came to say goodbye. Freddy had touched more people than I ever imagined.”

“Yes, he did.”

When Lionel said goodnight and returned to his own apartment after helping with the dishes, Rosalee found herself alone again in Freddy’s home surrounded by his belongings and her memories. Feeling strangely numb and empty from the emotional day, she went to brush her teeth and get ready for bed. Then she stood looking down at the guest bed but couldn’t bring herself to climb into it.

Resolved, she turned and went into Freddy’s room.

It felt strange to know that everything in here belonged to her now. His memory and his secrets were in her care. She felt less like an intruder now that he’d been laid to rest; in fact, she was responsible to clear up his things, decide what to do with them, and pack away whatever she decided to keep that she wouldn’t be living with every day.

 _I live here now_. The thought surprised her for a moment. _I need to go back to Seattle, give notice to my landlord and pack up and move. I’m really coming back to Portland. I’m actually going to try to do this_.

“Freddy, I hope I’m doing the right thing,” she said aloud to the empty room. “It feels right even though it’s…. _really_ scary.”

She walked around the bed looking at the items on his dresser and nightstand, all very ordinary and to be expected of a man of his age and tastes. There was a corner desk where his desktop computer sat, printer on a small side table next to it. His laptop was still at the shop. _Right, I need to look around and see if he left me his passwords…tomorrow_.

She was suddenly very tired. She stood for a moment looking at the antique brass bed their parents had passed along to him when they retired and moved to Medford; he’d been very touched by that, having admired the bed frame despite being given the task of keeping it polished as part of his household chores growing up.

“I don’t want to keep up with the tarnish any more,” Gloria had admitted when she and George were preparing to move. “So if you’d like to have it….”

“Very much!” Freddy had been very happy to take it off their hands.

 _And now it’s mine_. Rosalee sat on the edge of the bed and stroked its thick comforter. It had varied shades of natural greens, brown and rust with small touches of teal in the stylized floral background, overlaid with medieval looking patterns as if it were some secret magical fairytale garden. She decided she would keep it.

 _I’ll have to order a new mattress, though_. It would feel weird to take over his actual bed and sleep on it indefinitely.

But as her hand traced the patterns on the spread, it wandered onto his pillows as well. She hadn’t changed his bedding; it was still neatly made up by Freddy’s own hands since the morning of his death.

Suddenly the narrow guest bed seemed alien and cold.

She turned off the lights, pulled back the covers and crawled into his bed, needing whatever closeness she could find with him.

The sheets and pillows smelled like him, his own clean scent and the subtle cologne he’d favored. With a soft moan she pulled the covers up around her, gathered all his pillows and curled up around them as if holding Freddy close in her grief, remembering all the times he’d held and soothed her when she was hurting. Face buried in the pillows, she breathed in the scent that lingered there knowing that all too soon, his scent would fade from the home he had inhabited for so long. She was determined to preserve it in whatever ways she could.

And then, the funeral over and her most public duties completed, she gave in to her grief and cried herself to sleep.

 

“Nick’s away for the weekend,” Monroe told Rosalee when he came by two days later to see how she was doing after the funeral and to offer his help at the shop. “First time since I’ve known him that he’s actually taken some time off and left town.”

“Maybe his girlfriend put her foot down.”

Formalities surrounding the funeral over now, she was back to her practical wardrobe again for work, Monroe observed: a blue chambray shirt, thick ivory cardigan bordered with geometric patterns in nutmeg brown and pants in a matching nutmeg. Her long bangs were pulled back in a clip out of her way.

He was beginning to recognize her casual, sometimes bohemian personal style. That, and she’d complained that her wardrobe was limited to what she’d grabbed on her way out of Seattle and a brief shopping trip here.

“Could be. But I’m not taking bets that they’re going to have a relaxing time out there. He was real antsy before he left, and then he woke me up at two thirty this morning calling with a Wesen question. And I needed to get up by five for my Bikram class!”

She looked up from Freddy’s account books, eyebrows knit. “Two thirty in the morning?”

“Yeah; as luck would have it, right next door to where they’re staying he saw what from his description has to be a Klaustreich, and there’s some kind of domestic disturbance going on over there.”

“Well, _that’s_ par for the course.” She went back to flipping through the records, looking for the last invoice for Leroy Estes’s treatment. She still needed to send him a bill.

“That’s what I told him. That, and sleep with one eye open.”

“Did the Klaustreich make him as a Grimm?”

“He didn’t say.”

She closed the account book, tired of looking; she’d just have to ask Leroy when his last episode happened so she could narrow her search. His file described the treatment but didn’t have a copy of the charges or when Leroy was last seen. “Um, could you help me bring some supplies up from the basement? The boxes are kind of heavy.”

“Sure.” The last time he’d been here, the cartons of Jay were still down there awaiting pickup.

They went downstairs and she pointed to a deep wooden crate on a shelf at shoulder height. Monroe looked around the shadowy room. “It’s gone.”

“Yeah. I finally got permission from the police and Gillian picked the stuff up two days before…the funeral. Otherwise Karel would have taken it back with him after the service.”

Monroe remembered meeting the tall, smooth, reserved Lausenschlange at the memorial.

Rosalee gathered up some smaller boxes and headed for the stairs. Monroe easily hefted the heavy lidless box off its shelf and heard numerous bottles rattle inside. He followed her up to the main shop floor.

She was already shelving the contents of her boxes when he set the crate on top of the central display cabinet.

“Look, I really appreciate you helping me out with all this,” she said, knowing he was giving up his Saturday morning to assist her at her shop.

“Well, you never know when I might need a discount on…” Being flippant, Monroe pulled out a bottle at random from the crate and checked its label. “…Tincture of Prickle Poppy?”

Rosalee couldn’t suppress an amused smile as she turned to take it from him. “Yeah, that’s for, ah….” _How to phrase this for her new male friend?_ “…romantic stamina.”

“Oh. Well.” Monroe turned the awkward moment into a joke. “No wonder I didn’t know what it was.”

She was laughing softly at that while she placed a jar on a high shelf. She noticed another jar at the end of the shelf above that had no label visible, and stretched to reach it and turn it around. Her hand brushed something tucked alongside the seldom used and slightly dusty jar, a long envelope thick with what felt like paper and booklets.

“Found something.” She pulled the yellowed envelope down from the shelf and looked at it, thinking that was an odd place to leave any kind of paperwork.

“Maybe it’s money,” Monroe guessed.

But when she opened it, she was mystified. “It’s not money. Passports. From Brazil, Canada…”

Monroe took another one and opened it. “And Germany!” Together they inspected the documents and their identifying photos. “Isn’t that your brother? In _all_ of them?”

Freddy’s hair, mustache and beard were different in each picture but all three were definitely him; and each bore a different name, vital statistics and country of origin: Jerad Marantz, Canada; John Banholter, Leipzig, Germany….

“What, was he a _spy_ or something?”

Studying the false passports, perplexed, and remembering Lionel’s fanciful speculations that Freddy had a secret life as a spy or part of a sleeper cell, Rosalee said, “I have no idea.”

Monroe’s phone went off and he took it from the front pocket of his dark green plaid shirt. Rosalee collected the passports and started up the library ladder in front of the shelf wall while he answered with a sigh. “Hey, Nick. I kind of thought, a vacation for _you_ kind of meant, you know, vacation for me too.”

Rosalee gave him a quizzical look from her perch when he responded to whatever the detective said next with a sarcastic, “My groin is fine, thank you.” He winced at her and shook his head. His expression changed as he listened to the rest. “Whoa, whoa, whoa – is this a joke? That sounds like a Seltenvogel, if they weren’t extinct.”

At that she turned on the ladder in surprise. “A Seltenvogel?”

“Sounds like it,” he told her. Then, responding to Nick’s next question, “I’m with Rosalee, I’m helping her out in the shop. But let’s get back to the Seltenvogel. In ancient times they were highly valued and usually kept prisoner, you know, like a concubine or a parakeet.”

Rosalee listened, impressed by his knowledge and amused by his quirky descriptions.

He waited for Nick’s next query and started explaining. “Once in their life, the Seltenvogel produces this kind of large…glandular thing…”

Rosalee pointed a finger and started down the ladder. “I think it’s called an _unbezahlbar_.” As a girl she’d been fascinated by stories of this seemingly magical treasure.

Monroe turned to her in surprise, eyebrows lowered. “That’s easy for _you_ to say.” Talking to Nick as he followed her through the shop toward the main counter, he said, “She thinks it’s called an…” and held the phone out to her.

“ _Unbezahlbar_ ,” she repeated.

“OON-be-TSAAL-bar,” he sounded out for Nick.

“My brother has a book….” Rosalee ducked behind the counter and pulled it from a stack of reference books shelved underneath.

“Hang on, we’re lookin’,” Monroe advised Nick.

She opened the thick tome on the counter and started flipping pages. “Here it is.” She pointed to the entry. “Right here.”

Monroe cleared his throat as he skimmed the text. “Okay, it’s a dense mineral deposit which develops in the throat sack.”

Their heads were close together over the book, Monroe’s index finger tracing the text and line drawings illustrating Seltenvogel physiology including the unbezahlbar and procedures related to it. He was holding his phone down so Nick could hear both of them now.

“Develops something like an egg,” Rosalee read next; they turned to smile at each other, sharing this exotic Wesen lore.

“Anyway…if the stone gets too big it needs to be delivered and the trick is getting it out intact,” Monroe continued. “Because if it’s damaged, it’s, you know, worthless.”

 _“Yeah, but what makes them so valuable?”_ Nick’s voice came through the phone.

“Okay, well, it’s unbelievably rare for one thing, but it’s also supposed to be mostly gold, if you believe in that kind of thing,” Monroe said, referring to the book.

 _“Well, and I’m guessing a Klaustreich would know this, too_ ,” the Grimm said.

Monroe reacted with dismay. “Oh, man…is this the woman who’s with the Klaustreich?”

_“Yeah.”_

“Listen, if he’s anything like the guy I went to high school with, as soon as he gets what he wants, she is going to be in _big trouble_ , man. And when I say big trouble I mean she’s gonna get plucked, okay? Big time!”

 _“Okay. Thanks.”_ Not the news Nick wanted to hear on his weekend escape, but now he knew. The call ended.

Rosalee’s eyes were wide with concern. “Wow.”

“What is it with chicks and their attraction to Klaustreich tomcats? In this case a _literal_ chick?” Monroe asked, distressed. “I just don’t get it. What’s with the bad-boy magnetism there, anyway?”

“Well, they can be very charming and flirtatious when they’re on the prowl,” Rosalee said, having seen this too many times. “Full of all kinds of false compliments and pretty lies until they get what they want. It’s like they just _ooze_ testosterone, like they move in this cloud of seductive pheromones, and when they focus their attention on someone…wow. It can be hard to resist.”

He looked at her wide-eyed.

“I’ve seen it lots of times. I’ve never had one come after me…except trying it on in hopes of scoring some Jay, but that addiction overruled anything else. Threats and violence always come next but I have claws and fangs, too.”

“Yeah, I saw the threats and violence part back in high school,” he said darkly, still seething at the awful memory of Molly’s ruin. “And this poor Seltenvogel woman…well, it’s already escalated into a domestic situation that got Nick’s attention from next door.”

“I can’t imagine why a Klaustreich would be in a spousal or cohabiting relationship with a Seltenvogel unless she was incubating an unbezahlbar and he was in it for that.” She went back to restocking, making notes on her clipboard. “It sure can’t be for love – I can hardly think of two species that are less compatible. I wonder how he found out about her, poor thing. She must not have any family to protect her.”

“Maybe, maybe not. It didn’t seem to matter with that guy in high school; any girl he wanted, he got her and treated her like trash afterward. Or worse.” He shook his head. “Total train wreck. I sure don’t envy Nick with this one, especially with his girlfriend right there for this ‘romantic getaway’.”

“Does she _know_?”

“No. He’s trying to protect her from it. Even though she’s suffered some fairly bizarre collateral damage, blowback from some of his Wesen cases…so far he’s been _kind_ of able to explain certain weird things away. Including me.”

Rosalee looked up at that last remark and lowered an eyebrow; there was probably an interesting story there.

Monroe shook his head. “I don’t know how much longer he’ll be able to keep her in the dark…or how the hell he could get her to believe the truth without blowing her mind. It’s already causing strain in their relationship, apparently.”

“No kidding. I can’t imagine how it couldn’t.”

“Relationships.” He let out a long breath and shook his head. “Totally baffling. But maybe that’s just me.”

She had surmised that Monroe was a free agent, not involved with anyone right now; and more and more she sensed that he’d been solo for quite awhile. Maybe he was like Freddy and Lionel that way…or maybe it had something to do with his decision to follow his _wieder_ path.

For a loner, he was certainly making himself available a lot to help her lately. Maybe he’d been lonely, too. And maybe it helped him, having another Wesen to talk with about knowing and even working with a Grimm; it certainly helped her, not having to face that alone.

“So what’s on your agenda today?” he asked, once they’d put away all the supplies they’d brought from the basement.

She closed her eyes in pain. “Well, I just received Freddy’s certified death certificates.”

“Ohhh, I’m sorry. I mean, I know you need them for the legal stuff, but still.”

“Yeah. So now I have to start making the rounds closing out his estate, transferring assets and property, honoring bequests, and all kinds of complicated legal and business transactions that I’ve never dealt with before. I need to call his lawyer's office Monday to set up an appointment and Lionel is going to help me sort out some of the business and real estate side. He’s in investment properties. We’re having a kind of working lunch at home today.”

Monroe concealed his disappointment that she already had plans for lunch. “You coming back to the shop later?”

“I don’t know, maybe. I’ll check the shop phone’s voice mail and find out if anyone really needs something. I could use an evening off to just put my feet up and cocoon; it’s been pretty much relentless since I got here from Seattle, with one thing and another.”

“Yeah, well, Freddy’s shop hours say daily from ten to five, but there were a lot of times when I’d come by and it was closed anyway. I learned to call ahead just in case.”

“Seven days a week is too much for one person, or even two. I saw that with my parents – that’s another reason why I wasn’t eager to follow in their footsteps. They hardly ever seemed to have any time off, time for themselves. It’s like they were on call 24/7. I didn’t want that.”

“Me, either. I don’t do well with that much structure, at least imposed from outside. That’s why doing what I do and mostly working at home suits me. Doesn’t matter what time of day I’m fixing clocks, long as I get it done by my promised date.”

“Well – you’ve certainly been generous with your time to me. I hope I haven’t put you behind in your work.”

 _Was that a gentle way to nudge me to leave?_ he wondered.

“That’s something Nick has never worried about. But then he’s a cop and a Grimm – talk about being on call 24/7.” He looked at his watch. “You want a ride back to your working lunch? I should head back and get some work done, too.”

“Thanks. I’m done here for now. I really appreciate all the rides; but it’s not that far and the transit’s easy, I don’t want to take advantage.”

“You’re not! It’s a treat for me having some company and not out of my way.”

“Okay. But remember, I still owe you a dinner; I haven’t forgotten, and you’ve done so much for me since then, too.”

“I won’t say no to that.” He smiled. “Just say when.”

“I’ll have to scope out places that do good vegetarian.”

“Thanks for that…I have my ‘greatest hits’ list when the time comes.”

 

The business lunch with Lionel was challenging but not overwhelming; he was very good at explaining things to her and detailing what she needed to do. He offered to go with her to Freddy’s lawyer and accountant and she gratefully accepted, though she suspected one or both would be Wesen; if so, somehow she’d have to warn them that Lionel was kehrseite in case they didn’t realize.

When they’d finished with lunch and the tasks at hand, Lionel asked gently, “You’ll be moving into the main bedroom, I’d expect? Would you like some help and a friend to lean on when the time comes to take care of Freddy’s things?”

She gave him a wan smile. “I’ve already started sleeping in there, right after the funeral. At first I couldn’t but now it makes me feel closer to him somehow. So far, I’m managing; I’m not really in a hurry to change things in there just yet, but when the time comes, I’ll let you know.”

“I certainly don’t mean to intrude.”

Her smile widened and she patted his hand. “I know, and you’re not, not at all. Just…one step at a time.”

“Good to hear. Let me know as soon as you make your appointments so I can make myself available.” He gave her a brief hug and left to handle business of his own.

Disturbed by the counterfeit passports she’d found at the shop, Rosalee was even more determined to sort through Freddy’s personal effects alone. She already knew where to find the Wesen Council contact documents and prayed that she’d never need to call them. The very idea of being in personal communication with the powerful Council with its global reach and lethal operatives made her blood run cold. Her parents and Freddy did not tread there lightly.

Only when she was certain she’d removed anything Lionel shouldn’t see would she ask his help dealing with Freddy’s clothes and other belongings.

_I need to get back to Seattle and pack up my own things, give the management company notice, clear out what I’m not taking with me and turn in the keys._

She looked around the apartment from where she sat.

_It’ll all fit in a rental car; Freddy’s household stuff is nicer than mine and I’m not going to want many reminders of my Seattle sojourn. And I need to stop by the pharmacy and give everyone my thank yous and goodbyes, turn in my smock and take Karel and Gillian out for lunch or dinner, they’ve been so great…._

Deciding that all those tasks had the distinct flavor of elephant, she reminded herself that small bites would get her there, thankful again to Monroe.

She decided to make a start by looking through Freddy’s closet; somehow his dresser drawers seemed even more personal so those would wait. Feeling protective of his secrets and knowing that in time she’d ask Lionel for help with his clothes, she went through all the pockets of his many suit coats, jackets, overcoats and sweaters, then the pants pockets…though as they were hung by their cuffs she doubted Freddy would leave anything there that might fall out.

There were some innocent receipts and bits of dried plant matter that for whatever reason he’d tucked in his pockets at work and forgotten to clean out later. She found movie and concert ticket stubs, and a dark glass vial that smelled strongly of aconite oil, an effective anti-inflammatory used externally but a deadly poison if ingested – little bits and pieces of his daily life and work, but nothing noteworthy.

The shelves in the very back of his closet were a different matter. There in the dark were dozens of Wesen reference books in a variety of languages and a number of handwritten personal journals bound in different kinds of soft leather, some very old, some in Old Irish, antique English and Dutch. She sat on the bed and paged through several of them, lost in wonder and fascination at the lore and treatments their ancestors had recorded there. Some had sketched illustrations of procedures and equipment they’d used on their patients, much of it unfamiliar to her or long outdated and in some cases, horrific.

The journals she would hide somewhere else when she let Lionel help clear the closet; then she would restore them to this dark safe space away from damaging light and moisture. She selected as many books as she could carry on the bus to take back to the shop where she could study them between customers.

There would be plenty of questions she’d need to ask Karel.

 

It was late afternoon when her phone buzzed, interrupting her focus on the Wesen texts she was skimming to determine which to take with her to the Spice Shop. There were six in her backpack already; one more and she’d have to stop or it would be too heavy.

She smiled when she saw the contact info on the screen: Monroe. “Hello?”

“Hey, are you at the shop?”

“No, I’m still here…home.” She would have to get used to saying that. “I’m going through some pretty amazing reference books my brother had hidden in his closet. I kind of lost track of the time.”

“So, calling it a day?”

“No…I’m packing up what I can carry and taking them to the shop.” She got up, put the book she’d been reading into the backpack and zipped it up. “Some are in languages I can’t read, but others I can at least make out the basics.”

“I’m in the area, just finished shopping at the co-op and Ristretto Roasters, rounding out my coffee supply. Want a ride over there? We could take more books with us in the car.”

“Um, okay, that’d be great.”

Monroe wondered if she could sense his broad smile through the phone. “Be there in a few.”

 

They ended up taking two large boxes of books with them. Rosalee stashed most of them in the private area behind the main shop floor but she and Monroe both got caught up in leafing through some especially unusual and beautifully illustrated volumes; night fell while they were concentrating on their reading, separately and together, Monroe helping translate one written in German.

“So you were raised bilingual?” she asked, impressed.

“Sorta kinda. Not formally; I’m not terribly fluent in conversation, better at reading. My parents and their siblings are bilingual, grew up speaking German at home, and some of the older folks spoke it a lot, especially when they didn’t want us kids to know what they were talking about. That was great incentive to listen closely and start picking up the language so we could understand the juicy gossip or be forewarned if we were about to get in trouble!”

Rosalee laughed. “Much better than just the threat of a vocabulary test or a writing assignment.”

“You got it.” He hefted several of the books. “It’s getting late, maybe I should stash these in back with the other ones and we should consider going out to score some dinner.”

“Sounds good. I need to do some shopping, too; I’m running out of fresh stuff back at Freddy’s. Maybe tomorrow after work. Let’s not forget your cold items we put in the refrigerator.”

“Right. And just saying, you’ve got some pretty weird stuff in there along with the creamer and bacon.”

She chuckled. “Goes with the territory. It won’t infiltrate your food, don’t worry.”

Just after he disappeared with the books into the back room, her phone rang. She turned to the counter to pick it up and see who was calling.

The number was unfamiliar and was requesting a FaceTime session. Brows pinched in surprise, wondering who this was, she hit “Accept”.

“Hello?”

Nick’s anxious face filled the screen, his eyes wide; there was dark forest behind him. “Rosalee, hey…Nick Burkhardt here.” He waved anxiously. “I need your help.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Well, I’m with….” He turned the phone’s camera on a desperately distressed woman with a huge growth bulging from her throat; she was struggling for breath. “Robin, the Seltenvogel.”

Rosalee’s eyes went wide with alarm. “Nick! You need to get that stone out of her before it cuts off her airway!”

“Yeah, I know, but _how_?”

Just then Monroe emerged from the back room and joined her, surprised and disturbed to hear Nick’s voice on her phone. “Is that Nick? He called _you_?” Then, to Nick, an irritated edge in his voice, “You called _her_?”

Annoyed at this during an emergency, Rosalee said, “Can you guys do this later? That girl needs help!”

“She says I need to take it out.”

Rosalee asked Monroe, “Can you grab the book?” He was standing at the counter where the book with the Seltenvogel information was stashed on the shelves below.

He bent to reach it while Rosalee told Nick firmly, “No, you need to _cut_ it out of her. Do you have a knife?”

“Ah, yeah, I do.” While he was groping in his jacket pocket for it, Monroe opened the book on the countertop and found the pages they needed. Rosalee held her phone up so Nick could see and hear them both.

“Okay, right here….” Monroe looked at the illustration and recoiled. “Oh, boy….”

“Okay,” Rosalee coached, “the cut should be made vertically along the widest point of the unbezahlbar.”

Reading, Monroe said, “The skin should be…pretty tight, so you just need to press the knife through the flesh until you feel the hard surface of the…stone.”

They could hear Robin’s harsh strangling gasps as Nick said, “Okay,” and let out a nervous breath before starting the cut. Needing both hands, he put his phone aside so they couldn’t see what was going on while he worked.

“Nick – update!” Rosalee said.

“Uh…a little busy here!”

“Oh – it says be really careful not to cut the jugular,” Monroe added.

Voice even more stressed, Nick said, “Ah…not helping!”

“You want to get close,” Rosalee said, “but not too close.”

“How will I know if I’m too close?”

“Dude, you’ll know. Tons of blood,” Monroe said disturbingly. “Trust me, it’s not pretty. I’ve been there.”

Caught up in the emergency, Rosalee subconsciously filed that away to think about later.

“Okay, okay, I think I’m done.”

“Okay, slip your hands into the cut and gently detach the unbezahlbar from the vaseric membrane,” Rosalee directed, following the book’s instructions. “You should feel a slight pop when it separates.”

Excitedly Nick reported, “Okay, okay – it popped.”

“Okay, that’s great,” she said. “Now just, um, just simply lift it up and out.”

They waited anxiously while Nick worked and then heard Robin inhale deeply, able to breathe freely at last. He peeled away the membrane to reveal the glittering, irregular lump, holding it in his fingertips while turning his phone camera on it for Rosalee and Monroe.

“Oh, wow!” Rosalee said, looking with awe at the rare and strangely beautiful thing. “How is she?”

“She…she seems to be breathing a lot better. I think she’s going to be okay.”

“Nice goin’, dude!” Monroe told him. “Hey, call me later, will you, when all this calms down.”

They were both smiling with wonder at the sight of the unbezahlbar and relief that Nick had saved the suffering Seltenvogel. Knowing he needed to concentrate on getting Robin to safety, Rosalee thumbed off her phone.

They looked at each other in amazement, stoked with adrenaline and excitement.

“Wow!” Monroe said, and she laughed with relief at their success. Then Monroe’s smile faded. “Uh…I wonder what he did with the Klaustreich?”

“I…don’t want to think about that right now.” Nick was a Grimm, after all. “But it sounds like he deserves whatever happened to him.”

“As long as Nick and the woman are okay.” He shook his head. “I wonder what she’ll do with her unbezahlbar? It’d be awesome if we get to see it, even touch it maybe.”

“That truly would be awesome. I just hope they get out of the forest safely and that cut to her throat heals well. I wouldn’t want to try explaining that to an ER staff.”

“No kidding. I don’t imagine that’s something to fix with a dab of Neosporin and a Band-Aid.”

“No. Well, if he needs more help he can call us once they get somewhere safe.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Monroe said, from long experience. “He will.” He gave her an appraising look. “Well, after this, you’re definitely a member of his club. Don’t expect this will be the end of it, by far.” Now that he’d gotten over the surprise of Nick calling Rosalee directly instead of him, he realized he was glad to have someone to share the burden of being Nick’s personal Grimmopedia.

Rosalee winced. “Great. Just what I need right now.”

“Well, it’s not all bad – like tonight. No danger to us, and we helped him save a life. That really kind of…doesn’t suck.”

“You’re right – it doesn’t.” As the adrenaline faded, she realized how hungry she was. “So, what sounds good for dinner?”

 

They got Korean takeout and brought it back to the shop just in case Nick called again so they could speak freely in privacy.

“So, you’re definitely not going back to Seattle, right?”

“Just long enough to pack up my stuff and vacate my apartment. Two days, maybe three should do it. I’m settling into Freddy’s place.”

He looked at her with compassion. “How’s that feeling?”

“Strange. Sad. But better…I’m getting used to it, and being there is helping me feel close to him and let him go at the same time. Does that make sense?”

“Kind of.”

“I’m liking it there. I have Lionel for company and he’s being a huge help with the business side of things, settling the estate and all that. And it’s a lot more room than I’ve been used to for a long, long time.” Far more than her studio apartment…and much, much more than a jail cell or shared room in rehab. “I’m pretty sure Freddy would be happy that I’m staying on there, close to his friend.”

“I didn’t know him that well, but I bet he’d be really happy you’re staying on and keeping his shop open, helping all of us who relied on him.”

“That’s…that’s going to be a pretty tall order, but I’m trying.”

“Well, there are lots of us who are very glad that you are.” There was a warmth in his eyes and voice that made her feel glad, too.

 

They wouldn’t find out until days later what had happened with Robin, her unbezahlbar and her merciless Klaustreich husband and his kin after their phone call had ended.

Following a day of silence on Monday, Monroe had to call Nick to get the rest of the story. After that terse conversation, he reported to Rosalee that Nick had come back from his not-so-romantic getaway very distracted and brooding. Apparently more than the Seltenvogel incident had gone down while Nick was away, but he wasn’t talking about it.

What Nick hadn’t told him or Hank was that things had not gone well at all when he’d proposed to Juliette on their return. It took some time to get over her refusal though he understood her reasons only too well; he just didn’t know how to answer them. Over the next several days they quietly went back to the way they were before, not talking about it, but the strain was there.

And now he was very worried about Hank.  Very soon he'd be entangling his Wesen friends in another secretive life-or-death situation.  Rosalee's skills, nerve and knowledge were about to be severely tested.


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What was going on in Rosalee's life and mind before and including the events of Grimm's "Love Sick" episode? It's barely 2 weeks since her brother was murdered, and her life is being turned inside out. And now suddenly she's having to step way out of her comfort zone to try to save two lives, two people important to Portland's Grimm, working with apothecary skills she's rusty and uncertain with to help defeat a Hexenbiest's deadly zaubertrank.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO much happened in this episode! And with all that going on, the writers left big gaps in what was happening with Rosalee and Monroe behind the scenes...especially when they found themselves alone with a revived Hank in Adalind's bedroom, who had a lot of questions they couldn't answer freely.
> 
> This is my imagining of the story from their perspective, particularly Rosalee's challenges coping with the sudden burden of this life-and-death responsibility to defeat the zaubertrank when no one else around them could.
> 
> Said it before, saying it again..."Grimm" belongs entirely to its creators and owners, not at all to me. These stories woven through scenes from their episodes are my homage to the show I love so much!

**Chapter Four**

Rosalee was closing out the shop’s register just past six when her phone rang. She smiled when she saw who it was; no surprise there.

“How’d it go today with the lawyer and all that?” Monroe asked.

“It was…a little overwhelming but we have things in motion now. It’s going to take awhile to process the transfers, work out taxes and business license and permit requirements with the state and city, all that. But Mr. Rothbart was very nice, explained things clearly, and it helped having Lionel there to ask questions I hadn’t thought about. Since they both knew Freddy so well they had an immediate rapport – which is good because I was a little worried that the lawyer might resent me bringing someone along for support.”

“So is Rothbart Wesen?”

“I don’t think so. It didn’t come up, and I didn’t get any ‘pings’ off him. No particular scent other than human. Or maybe he’s just very good at disguising it with clients and figured out Lionel was kehrseite. Whatever, we have a step by step game plan now and detailed as it is, it’s still a relief to know what to expect and when.”

“What about the accountant?”

Rosalee sighed and shifted the phone to her left hand so she could continue the closeout while they talked. “She was a whole different matter. Hazel Grey’s been Freddy’s CPA for years, knows the business inside out and how to…well, not so much conceal as interpret certain things so they won’t draw unwanted attention if we ever got audited. But she was very squirrely…and I mean, not just figuratively.”

“Are we talking Vorräte-Hörnchen?”

“Got it in one.” Rosalee smiled into the phone. “Soon as we walked into her office I was pretty sure by the scent and some, let’s say, subtle details of décor; heavy on botanical prints featuring various kinds of tree nuts. So when she came out to meet us I gave her a quick eye-woge that Lionel couldn’t see, shifted my eyes toward him and shook my head once. She got the message, flashed her own green-eyed woge back at me.”

Monroe chuckled. “Kinda like our secret society handshake.”

She laughed softly. “Kind of like that. But it was clear Lionel made her nervous. Makes me wonder if she’s one of those Wesen who avoids taking human clients.”

“Yeah, I know a few of those. But depending on your line of work, that’s pretty limiting given how vastly the kehrseiten outnumber us. Even in Portland.”

“Even in Portland. Like this afternoon, I had a bunch of human kids come in on a sort of botany treasure hunt for a class project; they had a whole list of plants they were supposed to identify, collect and press for a display, and they were hoping to come in here and get the whole thing done in one swoop.”

“Isn’t that kind of cheating?”

“Right, they wouldn’t learn a thing just buying dried plants already labeled for them. I told them that, then took their list and wrote down where they could take their field guide and go look for their samples in nearby parks instead. It’s okay, nothing endangered on there.”

She could hear the smile in Monroe’s voice. “You’re so strict!”

“And, sometimes I have furtive types shopping for poisons they think will be under the radar; no sales there, either. Freddy’d told me how he watched out for that. But then I have the tea aficionados, the experimental cooks, the pagan practitioners, all kinds of humans coming in to buy stuff. It’d be hard to keep the doors open without their business, too. Not to mention they’re good cover.”

“Wow, that’s a lot more involved than dealing with timepiece customers. So, sounds like you’ve had a busy day; me, too, lots of running around. I was wondering if you’d feel like grabbing dinner somewhere.”

Rosalee bit her lip, tempted and not wanting to disappoint her friend. But…. “I’m sorry, Monroe, I’m just so wrung out and tired tonight, I need to go home, soak in the tub and get to bed early. I was just going to pick up a burger next door and take it home with me. Could I have a rain check?”

“A rain check? In Portland? I’ll never see you again!” he teased, though he was disappointed. He hadn’t seen her in a few days though they’d talked often on the phone. “Okay, I understand. I should probably get some things done at home tonight anyway since I was out and around so much today.”

“But thank you for thinking of me.”

I’m always thinking of you these days, Monroe thought to himself, recognizing how attached he was becoming to his new friend, but said, “I’ll check in with you tomorrow then. At least we haven’t heard from Nick lately.”

She sighed. “There’s that, thank goodness.”

“Good night, then, have a good sleep.”

“You, too.”

 

But it was not to be.

Monroe had just finished a repair and was cleaning up his workbench for the night, mindful that it was already ten thirty and he needed to be up and at his Pilates by six, when his phone went off.

He stared at it from across the room, brow lowered, and felt his fingers curl into fists, knowing full well who it had to be. But with a sigh he bowed to the inevitable and went to answer Nick’s call.

Ten minutes later Nick was pacing his living room, beer in hand, while Monroe went to sit on his couch, nurse his own beer and listen to the Grimm’s latest crisis. And it was a doozy.

A Hexenbiest, and not just any Hexenbiest but Nick’s personal nemesis, had her hooks in Nick’s partner and made it clear to Nick that she was using Hank to get to him. And Hank’s obsession with her was getting more and more extreme, interfering with his work and every other aspect of his life.

“Could she have done something to him?”

“Hell, yeah! That’s what they do!” Monroe was privately surprised at the question. He knew for a fact that Nick had an entire volume on Hexenbiests in his trailer; surely there was a trove of information about this in there? “Looks like somebody took a bite out of the wrong apple, dude. Classic witch’s brew. Mojo, ju-ju, hocus pocus, booga-booga, whatever you want to call it. They’ve got some pretty potent concoctions that can seriously mess with your brain chemistry.”

Dismayed, Nick sat down by the fireplace. “That would explain it.”

The words came out of his mouth before he could think first. “Rosalee would know about this. I could call her.” Then he looked at his watch and remembered their phone conversation. “Oh, she’s probably asleep by now. Not that that ever bothered you.”

Urgently, Nick said, “Call her.”

“Hank’s your partner, you know more about what’s going on – you should call her.” Monroe was reluctant to be the intrusive late night caller.

“Monroe – you’re close to her, you’re her friend. I can tell she’s still not all that comfortable with me. Please.” He watched Monroe roll his eyes and sigh, shaking his head. “Hey, you know you’re going to get sucked into this anyway; you already are.”

“You called her for help with that Seltenvogel chick, what’s stopping you now?”

“Yeah, and you were a little bent out of shape about that, remember?”

Monroe sighed. “Okay, yeah. I was kind of defensive about you intruding on her life the way you’ve always done with mine. She’s going through a lot right now, Nick, I mean a lot of big hard changes.” At Nick’s skeptical raised eyebrow, he admitted, “And yeah, I guess I felt a little put out that you were calling someone else with your Wesen questions.”

“That was an emergency. Robin was about to die out there and I didn’t know what to do. I’d already talked to you both at the shop, she had the book….”

“Okay, okay, right. I got it. Immediate threat of death by asphyxiation makes a difference so cut to the chase, or in this case cut to the unbezahlbar. But Hank’s at serious risk too, from all you’re telling me.”

Nick gave him those wide, worried blue eyes. “Monroe – please. Especially if we have to wake her up for something that maybe isn’t a right-now dire emergency….”

With a deep long-suffering sigh, Monroe pulled out his phone. “All right. But if she’s mad, I’m blaming you.”

 

Relaxed from a good long herbal soak in Freddy’s deep clawfoot tub, her hair still damp from the shower after, Rosalee was settled in the big brass bed propped up on pillows and reading one of her apothecary ancestors’ journals before snuggling under the covers to sleep.

She had just come across a passage describing and illustrating the procedure for removal of a rogue Ziegevolk’s testicles and the many pheromone-producing glands throughout his body in cases of uncontrolled sexual predation, back in the days before anesthetics no less. Quickly closing the old book, she decided that maybe these ancestral journals weren’t the best choice for bedtime reading – even if in this case, it was the only alternative to the Council’s execution order for his blatant predation of kehrseiten females to the point of risking Wesen exposure.

When her phone went off, she glanced at the clock and cursed softly; it was nearly eleven. But when the caller ID was Monroe she quickly detached the phone from its charger and answered, concern in her voice. “Monroe – are you okay?”

“I’m okay, but I’m afraid Nick’s partner’s not. Nick’s over here looking for advice and help, and I’m out of my depth with this one.”

“But why us? Hank’s a kehrseite.”

Monroe paced the living room, waving his nearly finished beer while he spoke, Nick still sitting by the fireplace listening anxiously. “Well – how conversant are you with Hexenbiests and how they work their obsession hocus pocus on unsuspecting humans?”

“Oh, my god, that is so not good.” She pushed the closed journal aside, fully alert now. “Is he sure it’s a Hexenbiest? They’re not the only cause of obsessive behavior.”

“In this case he knows the Hexenbiest and surprise, surprise, she’s real bad news. They’ve clashed before. I don’t have all the details but Hank’s going over the edge, fast.”

“Okay, okay. Everything’s at the shop; I can’t help him from here. I’ll get dressed and meet you there.” She hesitated. “You’re coming, too, right?” She wasn’t eager to be alone with an agitated Grimm in the middle of the night, even this one.

“Yeah, I’m comin’.” She heard the resignation in his voice. “I’ll pick you up – it’s the least we can do. So much for an early night for either of us, sorry.”

“Don’t be. This sounds serious. I just hope there’s something we can do to help. Hexenbiests were never my favorite subject and the few that used to frequent the shop were pretty scary. My dad said you really don’t want one to be an unsatisfied customer.” She shivered, and not from the chill night air, as she started pulling off her nightclothes with one hand, phone clasped in the other. “I’ll be ready by the time you get here.”

 

Monroe insisted on taking his car while Nick drove his Land Cruiser. Late at night especially, he didn’t want their transportation dependent on the mercurial and anxious Grimm; he’d been left stranded in bad places before when Nick took off to deal with something else.

Rosalee was waiting just inside her front door, peering out through the open blinds, and hurried out to hop in as soon as the yellow Bug pulled up.

“I’m really sorry,” Monroe said while she buckled up. “I hope we didn’t roust you out of bed.”

“You did, but I wasn’t sleeping…yet. I just kind of threw myself together; I’m a mess. Just put on whatever was on top of the clean laundry basket.” Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she was huddled into her heavy brown coat.

“You’re fine, especially for someone hauled out of bed at nearly midnight. I only had ten minutes’ warning before he showed up at my door; I was just about to head upstairs myself.” He put the car in gear and drove toward the shop.

“So what’s going on? What else do you know?”

“Well, it can’t be a coincidence that this is the same Hexenbiest that tried to poison his Aunt Marie…Kessler…” he saw Rosalee nod that she remembered, “in the ICU and ended up stabbing Nick with the needle instead when he jumped in to stop her.”

“Great. What was in the needle?”

“Spider venom. Lots of it.”

“Oh, shit!” Rosalee covered her mouth. “Sorry. I don’t usually talk like that.”

“Don’t worry, it’s definitely an ‘oh, shit’ situation. Besides, that’s not all. The reason we don’t have Mellifers here in Portland any more?”

She looked at him in surprise. “We don’t? There’s been an established, well-respected colony here for generations.”

“There’s this Hexenbiest law firm that was running them out of town, death by lawsuit; long-time traditional enmity between their species of course, but even more than that going on. Nick’s Hexenbiest is one of those lawyers, the only one of three that the Mellifers didn’t eliminate; because by then, she was under police protection after the first two were killed.”

“How’d they do it? The Mellifers, I mean. They didn’t swarm them like the old days, did they?” Rosalee thought that would draw too much unwanted attention…but then with the media reports around the country of “killer bee” attacks, maybe their Africanized little cousins provided enough cover to get away with it.

“No, this was…novel. Death by flash mob and apitoxin injection.”

He waited for her reaction, glancing over to see her look at him sideways, one brow lowered. “It happened twice, very public. Song’s over, everybody leaves laughing and high-fiving…and there’s a swollen-up dead lawyer left behind, anaphylactic shock. It was all over the news.”

“Twice? Once could be a strange coincidence, I mean, bee stings can happen almost anywhere. But…”

“Yeah, not the usual way Mellifers send a message but this was one desperate, angry hive. Real weird, real showy, cops didn’t have a clue who was behind it…except for Nick. Long story there, early days with me helping him.”

Monroe shook his head at that memory while he drove. “Anyway, the beefolk knew where to find this last Hexenbiest and swarmed her. Their Queen was just about to venomize her but Hank was there, assigned to protect the ‘innocent’ lawyer after her two colleagues were murdered. So Nick had to shoot the Queen to stop her, and that was the end of our Mellifers; they’ve declared Portland a no-go zone and they’re no fans of this particular Grimm. Especially since it turned out they were also trying to protect him.”

“Whoa.” Rosalee stared ahead into the night trying to wrap her head around all that. And then, “Our suspected foe’s a Hexenbiest and a lawyer; dangerous combination.”

“Yeah, she played the ‘thanks for saving my life’ card to get close to Hank…to get to Nick. The local Hexens are none too thrilled at having a resident Grimm in town, apparently.”

“He’s sure it’s this one?”

“Well, he confronted her and she basically said ‘try and stop me’, so I guess that qualifies as ‘pretty sure’.”

“Oh, my god. We’d better hurry. I don’t know that much about this stuff, not the details. There’s a whole lot of literature, some of it more hearsay than fact...they don’t exactly share their books with the rest of us. As you can imagine.”

“I’d rather not, but looks like we’re stuck with it.”

Nick’s Toyota was parked in front of the shop and he was pacing restlessly on the sidewalk when they pulled up. Rosalee was out of the VW as soon as Monroe parked; she headed straight for the shop door, keys ready.

“Not really my area of expertise,” she said as Nick followed her a little too closely for comfort. “But we’ll see what we can find.”

“This is my fault,” Nick said, more to himself than her. “I’m sure this is about me, not Hank. She’s using him….”

“From what Monroe told me,” she said, unlocking the door, flicking on the lights and leading the way into the shop, “this has to be a potion of some kind. How else could a human fall in love with a Hexenbiest?” Getting down to business, she was already shedding her coat, striding toward the wall of shelves and the library ladder. “They’re not exactly the lovable type.”

“Kinda hot though,” Monroe said without thinking; then, seeing the annoyed look that she shot him from her perch on the ladder, “I mean, if you go for that obviously hot thing, ‘cause I don’t.” He belatedly remembered she was feeling like “a mess” having just dashed out her door in a ponytail, brown pants, violet T-shirt and light gray cardigan with barely time to lace up her boots.

Handing down two thick, heavy books to Nick from a high shelf, Rosalee asked him, “Who’s the Hexenbiest?”

“Adalind Schade.”

The name meant nothing to her. Turning back to the shelf to grab a third book, she asked, “How long ago did this happen?”

“I’m guessing a couple of weeks.”

She felt the pain cross her face; her brisk voice went soft. “About the time Freddy was killed.”

Monroe looked at her with sympathy as she climbed down with the third book.

“Let me check his sales books, see if she’s been here. You guys keep looking.” She left them flipping through the books searching for obsession spells while she went behind the counter to retrieve Freddy’s handwritten daily sales records.

Skimming pages in a massive volume, Monroe was already feeling overwhelmed. “How many of these zaubertranks are there?”

Nearby, Nick was paging through another book. “Zaubertrank means potion.” He looked at Monroe for confirmation.

“Yup.”

Nick smiled darkly; why did they always have to make these things sound more complicated? “Wouldn’t it just be easier to say ‘potion’?”

“Yeah.”

“Then, why don’t you just say that?”

“Because,” Monroe said, looking meaningfully at Nick, “it’s so much more than that. It’s wieder Zauber, ein Zaubertrank!”

Rosalee was listening to this exchange, mildly amused despite the late hour and circumstances, while she thumbed through Freddy’s most recent sales book. Her smile faded as she reached his final entries, the pages blank beyond his death date. A loose piece of paper in unfamiliar writing slipped from the book when she reached his last notations. She read the items on the list, brow furrowing in consternation.

“Hey, I’ve got something. A shopping list somebody wrote from the day my brother died.” A quick glance showed that Freddy hadn’t entered the items in the book with the quantities and prices charged.

She took the list over to Monroe and Nick. “Coeur Diable, Rot Inguen and Essigblasse. These are three ingredients of a really dangerous recipe!” Combining these three would be highly psychotoxic, let alone what other ingredients the particular zaubertrank might use. The thought crossed her mind that the Rot Inguen might be left over from Freddy’s dealings with the Geiers.

“How dangerous?” Nick asked with foreboding, and got the answer he was dreading.

“From deeply ‘in love’ to deeply dead.”

Nick and Monroe stared darkly at each other before Monroe said, “Looks like the Hexenbiest that tried to kill your aunt has set her fangs on your partner now.”

Nick looked from Monroe to Rosalee. “Well – how do we cure that?”

“I’m not sure we can,” she told him, distressed and deeply aware of this weakness in her knowledge. “It’s…it depends on how far along the emotional and physical relationship has gone. Too far, and he’s….” She looked at Nick helplessly.

“Toast,” Monroe finished for her.

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Okay, well – we have to do something!” Nick insisted.

“There might be an antidote…but it would take me awhile to find it.” Already paging through one of the many books now stacked around them, scanning the illustrations and some cryptic alchemical symbols, she said, “First I have to find out what zaubertrank uses this recipe…”

Heads down, they all bent to concentrate on the stacks of books.

 

Hours later, Nick having left them to it, they were still looking, the task ever more daunting. Rosalee was bent over the volume she was scanning, Monroe standing nearby and looking through a book on top of a pile of others yet to be examined.

Tired and exasperated, he said, “It would help if I knew what I was looking for.”

Patiently she repeated, “Any recipe with these ingredients.” They both knew that only too well after hours of fruitless searching.

“There’s, like, a thousand recipes in here,” he said, and that was just in the thick book he was holding.

Rosalee paused, resting her eyes a moment and thinking, her intuition nagging at her; then it came into focus. “Remember the cop who got poisoned?”

“Boil dude? Yeah. Never forgetting that.”

“Remember I was saying it’s like the boomerang effect that happens when someone ingests a potion meant for someone else?”

“And you think the someone else was Hank?”

“Makes sense, right?” It seemed too coincidental that the sergeant worked with Hank and came down with this particular zaubertrank backlash affliction; there had to be a connection.

Monroe shook his head ruefully. “Does anything make sense with a zaubertrank?”

Looking back down at her book, Rosalee rested her face on her hand, her weary shoulders slumped. “Real love is hard to find.”

Focused on his book, Monroe said under his breath, “Don’t I know it.”

She looked up at that, but his head was down, eyes focused on his book. A moment later when he glanced at her, she’d returned to scanning her next pages.

It was going to be an all-nighter. They both knew it and forced themselves to keep searching despite the apparent hopelessness of their task.

Rosalee wished fervently that she knew more about this kind of magic-laced chemistry; Hexen- and Zauberbiests were their own special category of Wesen with unexplained powers unlike any others. Maybe someday science could explain it….but not yet.

The thin gray light of dawn was seeping through the shop’s skylights and front windows when they adjourned to the café table with the remaining books that might hold any clue to their problem. Their heads were throbbing, vision blurry and bodies aching with exhaustion from too many hours hunched in the same positions.

Rosalee kept searching though her mind felt numb and she was afraid she’d skim right past the recipe without recognizing it if it actually was here somewhere, she was so tired and bleary.

A couple of hours later, Monroe slowly keeled over on the padded bench under the window, book clutched to his chest, asleep in spite of himself. She knew only too well how he felt and let him sleep while the glow from outside gradually brightened.

Leaning her head on her hand, her neck and shoulders cramping and eyes barely open, she kept turning pages and scanning, scanning the endless illustrations and lines of text, some in German, French or Spanish, even some in Latin. Her weary mind struggled to translate the few essential words.

Then a gruesome drawing of a skewered human heart caught her eye and she made herself read the potion recipe below it again, focusing carefully. The brain fog cleared and she could hardly believe it; she read it again to be sure.

“I found it.” She heard the disbelief in her voice, but the words on the page were clear: the three ingredients on the shopping list, plus blood of the deceived, blood of the deceiver….

“I found it!”

She reached over from her chair to shake Monroe where he slept on his side on the bench, his back to the wall. “Monroe, wake up!”

He lurched up on one elbow, startled. “Where am I?” He looked around, disoriented, until she held her book open in front of him and said, “La Mort Pour L’Amour.”

Rubbing his eyes, Monroe read and translated, “Death for love.” He read the rest of Zaubertrank 23 and met her eyes with horror. Then he fished his phone from his pocket, speed dialing Nick.

“Burkhardt.”

“Hey, man, I’m with Rosalee. You might want to get over here because if Hank’s taken what we think he’s taken? He is knockin’ on heaven’s door.”

Nick rushed there from the precinct in minutes, desperately worried about Hank’s worsening inability to focus on anything but Adalind.

“This spell is designed to cause obsessive behavior; the obsession becomes so great that the brain overloads and the body literally shuts down,” Rosalee explained, getting to the point without all the gory psychopharmacological details she’d just studied.

“It could explain what happened to your….” Monroe began, weary brain searching for the officer’s name.

Nick got it. “Sergeant Wu.”

“Yeah.”

“His fever and lesions suggest that he got some of the zaubertrank meant for Hank,” Rosalee said. She pointed to the recipe. “This is what I think they took.” Despite Wu somehow ingesting some of the potion, Hank had obviously still gotten a strong enough dose.

“Well…I thought you’d cured Wu?”

“I just treated his symptoms.”

Nick thought of Wu’s sudden attack of pica, obsessively and unconsciously swallowing small inedible objects. “Could it explain eating coins, paperclips, ah, buttons…?”

Displaced obsession, she thought; it made a sick kind of sense. “Unfortunately, yes.”

“How do we stop this?”

“There’s an antidote.” The old book fortunately offered remedies as well as documenting hundreds of zaubertranks’ insidious effects, though some of its ‘cures’ she’d read looked highly questionable; she could only pray this one would work.

“And if this works on Wu, could it cure Hank?” Nick’s face showed his tense desperation.

Seeing that, and knowing two lives depended on her being correct about this, Rosalee suddenly felt the burden heavily and tried not to let it shake her confidence that she’d made the right diagnosis. “It…should. Yeah. No, no…it should.” She read through the treatment again. “I have all the ingredients…I just have to mix it.”

Looking over her shoulder at the list, Monroe marveled that she could know at a glance that Freddy’s…her stock included oddities like bellow balm, Caspian salts, tiger lily extract and something called Eufiria, though the nightshade was no surprise. And of course she had rosehips for blending wholesome teas and vitamin C complex supplements.

“Well, let’s do it!” Nick said.

It was the first time Monroe had seen her bring out some chemistry lab equipment to cook up a remedy. She measured each of the ingredients precisely, some in grams, one by the ounce into a glass beaker, all except for the Eufiria, and placed the beaker on a metal stand over a Bunsen burner. When she heated them, they blended into a transparent white liquid.

Then, very cautiously, she opened the Eufiria bottle and withdrew its glass dropper. Despite her care, to Rosalee’s dismay a few drops of the caustic stuff escaped the glass tube, hit the countertop and sizzled through its painted veneer to the bare wood beneath.

“Well, look at that,” Monroe said, trying to be encouraging. “Multiple uses.”

Very carefully, she added the precise number of drops into the simmering beaker. Immediately the liquid bubbled furiously, turning darkening shades of blue. When it wasn’t getting any darker, she turned off the burner.

For better or worse, it was done.

Nick looked at the concoction warily. “How do we get it in Hank?”

Rosalee pulled out a Jules Verne-looking device with two bent hollow prongs protruding from a bulging syringe and demonstrated. “With a nez-soufflet. You put these prongs into the victim’s nostrils and push down on the plunger.”

Monroe looked at the disturbing device and voiced the obvious problem. “You know – I don’t know Hank all that well. But…how the hell are you going to convince him that this is something that’s good for him?”

“Let’s just…see if it works first.”

 

Once again they were at Wu’s apartment door, but the delusional man wouldn’t let Nick in, claiming he was in the middle of dinner and eating “Fiber!” He laughed crazily and then started to choke. When Nick broke the door open, they found Wu in his underwear, strangling and convulsing on his hands and knees on a thick shag rug in the middle of his living room.

“Oh, my god, get him to the couch!” Rosalee cried. “I hope we’re not too late!” She rushed to fill the nez-soufflet while they wrestled Wu onto his couch, Monroe at his head. “Hold him down. Hold him down!”

“Here we go again,” Monroe said ruefully, his strong hands clamped around Wu’s head and chin to hold him steady while Rosalee knelt by the couch to insert the device’s tubes into Wu’s nostrils. She depressed the plunger, praying this would work.

The sergeant cried out as his back arched violently, only his head and feet still touching the couch; rigid, not breathing, he stayed that way while they watched in alarm, frozen in their places. Then he gradually went limp and sank back down. Before they could react it happened again, the seizure even more violent, Wu’s face flushing brilliant red and then blanching dead white.

Alarmed, Monroe asked, “Is that supposed to happen?”

Horrified that she might have killed Wu with her treatment, she said softly, “I hope so….”

“How long is it supposed to last?” Nick asked.

“I don’t know!” she admitted, leaning close over her patient and desperately looking for signs of life.

“Well, how will we know if he’s cured?”

The words were barely out of Nick’s mouth before Wu collapsed again, but breathing now, his color returning to normal. Starting to come around, he smacked his lips – and spat a mouthful of thick carpet fibers into Rosalee’s face. They bounced off her nose as she flinched and closed her eyes.

Nick and Monroe managed to turn away in time, grimacing as the fibers spewed up toward them.

But then Wu opened his eyes and looked up at them. “Where did you guys come from? Is this a dream?” Disoriented, he looked from one face to another, last at Rosalee who still held the peculiar nasal injection device…and suddenly realized his condition. “Why am I in my underwear?!?”

He slapped both hands over the front of his boxers, realizing there was a lady present. “Ah, this is a little embarrassing…excuse me!”

Very much alive and coherent now, he rolled off the couch and scuttled past them toward his bedroom, still covering himself while Rosalee rose to her feet.

Watching him go, Monroe said, “I think…it worked.”

“Yeah, and fast!” She was stunned and gratified.

Nick pulled out his phone. “Time to get it to Hank.”

However we’re going to manage that, Rosalee thought but she hurried off with them, leaving Wu’s damaged apartment door closed behind them.

 

Hank was not so lucky.

Adalind’s door was ajar and a trail of clothes suggested what had happened. They found Hank nude and alone in her bed, unconscious.

Dreading what she’d find, Rosalee lifted one of his eyelids; her heart sank when she saw the iris was bright red.

“Oh, my god, she altered the zaubertrank!” She reached for the book Monroe had brought with them and started paging through to Zaubertrank 23. “Hank is still alive but the antidote is useless now.”

“But it worked with Wu!” Monroe protested.

“He didn’t have sex with her!”

“Oh, god,” Monroe said, adding, “That always complicates things, doesn’t it?”

Nick was frantically shaking his friend and partner trying to rouse him but Rosalee made him stop, explaining that Hank was in a coma and, "It's not physical, it's mental. It's like his brain is locked."

She kept reading furiously; there was something more in the book that she’d seen back at the shop but they’d been focused on the immediate antidote.

“Well, there’s gotta be a way to fix this!” Nick couldn’t bear that Hank would die being used as a pawn against him.

“Possibly, if she used her own blood.” Reading the rest, more than ever, she understood why apothecaries loathed dealing with Hexenbiest clients and the consequences of their malevolent potions.

“What difference does that make?” the somewhat naïve Grimm asked.

She waved at the open book. “The only way you can break a blood zaubertrank is by killing the Hexenbiest whose blood is in it.”

Nick’s look was darker than she’d ever seen it, the kind of look she’d always expected from a Grimm. “Well, I’m not going to have a problem with that.”

Then his phone rang – Adalind, gloating and telling him what she demanded in exchange for Hank’s life. That damned key…but his Wesen friends didn’t know about that part.

Rosalee and Monroe couldn’t hear what she was saying, but Nick signed off and told them, “She’s in Forest Park.” There was murder in his eyes.

“Nick, you can’t kill her!” Rosalee said urgently.

“Oh, yeah, I can!”

“No, it’s not like that!” She followed him out of the bedroom, trying to get through to him before it was too late. “If you shoot her, she’ll be dead, but that won’t bring your partner back. The only way you can break the hold she has on Hank…” At last she had his attention and showed him the critical passage in the book. “…is with the blood of a Grimm. With your blood!”

Armed with that knowledge, he stormed off and left them to sit with Hank, all of them fearing it was a deathwatch.

In a matter of hours, the zaubertrank’s chemistry and extrasensory magic linked with Adalind would open tiny ruptures in Hank’s blood vessels, his heart pumping blood into his body cavities, compressing his lungs and starving his comatose brain. And all they could do was wait.

Rosalee sat close at Hank’s bedside watching him helplessly, and watching Monroe pace like a caged wild animal, cursing himself for letting Nick go alone as the Grimm had insisted, and for not following after him.

Fear for his friend radiated off him along with his anger, despite Rosalee assuring him Nick had to do this alone.

“He’s got to be with her by now, right?” he said. “How do we know when it’s over?”

“If Hank wakes up, then she’s dead.”

“And if Hank doesn’t wake up?” He resisted the answer he already knew.

Rosalee gave him a long, sad look. They would lose both Hank and Nick to Adalind Schade’s wicked scheme. In this fight either the Hexenbiest or the Grimm would die; even if she bested him and left him alive, with Hank dead he would be shattered.

Rubbing his face with both hands, Monroe resumed his pacing. “I should have gone with him.”

They were both jolted with shock when Hank suddenly sat bolt upright in the bed, sucking in a huge deep breath of air. Eyes wide, gasping, he looked around unsure of where he was, then at Rosalee and Monroe inexplicably at his bedside.

“What the hell?” he asked, as soon as he was able to speak. “What am I doing here?” He glanced around the unfamiliar bedroom and down at his own bare chest, realizing the rest of him was bare under the covers. Then he stared at Monroe and Rosalee, who were staring back at him, momentarily at a loss for words. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Cautiously Rosalee asked, “Do you know where here is?” She bit her lip while he scanned the room again, his memory blurred by the effects of the zaubertrank.

“Um…” The last he could remember was leaving work, getting dressed up for his date and buying flowers for…. “Adalind’s?”

“Nick asked us to come over here and stay with you. He found you unconscious.” During their long wait, Rosalee had been puzzling over what to say in this situation if Hank woke up and Nick wasn’t there.

“Oh, my god – what happened to Adalind?”

“He…said she wasn’t here, and the front door was open. He’s been concerned about you, you weren’t answering your phone….” She left him to fill in the rest.

Hank’s brows pinched and he pulled the covers up a little higher while he struggled to remember. But there was nothing beyond showing up at her door with his bouquet and Adalind’s smile as she let him in. Drawing a complete blank, he shook his head slowly.

“Have you ever experienced loss of consciousness and memory gaps like this before?” Rosalee asked, easing into her professional demeanor and working to keep Hank’s attention while Monroe was calling Nick in a far corner of the room, his back to them and his voice a whisper.

“No. No, nothing like…this.”

“No history of seizures? That could explain the impaired memory….”

“No, never.” Hank was perplexed…and disturbed. A seizure disorder could really mess with his law enforcement career.

“How are you feeling now? Let me check your pulse; it was very slow when we got here.” She hoped he wouldn’t ask why they hadn’t just called 911.

Distracted by her question and mind still fuzzy, he let her take his wrist. Counting and checking her watch, she was relieved to find his pulse strong and regular, steady at 60 bpm, a good resting rate for a man as fit as Hank was.

“I…think I’m okay, I just don’t know what happened.” He felt around his head and neck, finding no welts or soreness that he’d expect if someone had physically knocked him out.

“Well, you need to get checked out by your doctor right away, if not the ER tonight. You should probably have an EEG and a neurological workup.” And just maybe those could detect any lingering damage there might be from the zaubertrank.

Hank looked at her quizzically. “I thought you ran a spice and tea shop…with a lot of other weird stuff in it.”

She gave him what she hoped was a disarming smile. “Natural and traditional remedies for people into DIY healthcare. This isn’t within the scope of that.” It was way beyond the scope of modern medicine as well.

Hank rolled his tongue around inside his mouth; there was an odd bitter taste there and he was parched. “I’m really dry. I could use some water or something.”

She’d already poured some for herself and Monroe while they endured their long wait; too agitated, Monroe hadn’t touched his, so she handed it to Hank.

Across the room she could barely hear Monroe asking Nick, “What do you want me to tell him?”

Hank drank the whole glass in one go and asked for another. Then he looked around the room again. “What happened to my clothes?”

Putting his phone away, Monroe said, “There’s kind of a trail from the front door. I’ll go get them. Ah, Nick’s on his way.” He gave Rosalee a wide-eyed look when she returned with a refilled glass, and gratefully left Hank to her while he hunted down Hank’s clothes.

“I just want to get dressed and go home,” Hank said. His brow furrowed. “Nick went looking for Adalind?”

They answered quickly in unison.

“Yeah!”

“Yes, he did.”

“No details yet, he just said he’s coming back,” Monroe finished.

“Is her car here? Nah, you wouldn’t know that.” Hank shook his head. Then, “Is my car here?”

“Yes, and it needs to stay here,” Rosalee said firmly. “No driving for you until a doctor clears it.”

“Oh, right. No, that wouldn’t be good if I….” If this happened again, whatever it was, he thought unhappily.

They left Hank alone while he got dressed and used the bathroom, grateful they didn’t have to keep making awkward and possibly troublesome conversation.

“What happened?” Rosalee whispered while they waited in the kitchen.

“I don’t know. Maybe he’s busy getting rid of her body.” Monroe looked toward the closed bathroom door. “But he said he’s on his way.”

“The sooner the better. I’m running out of ideas to explain why he’s not in a hospital instead of here, with us!”

“Does he know how long he was out? Maybe we can say we’d just gotten here when he woke up.”

“He hasn’t asked, but he has a watch. I’m pretty sure he’ll look at the time when he puts it back on.”

Monroe groaned. “Yeah, that’s pretty automatic. And if not that, his phone.”

Rosalee took a long anxious breath and let it out. “Hurry, Nick…”

Hank came out looking uncomfortable in his dressy clothes and met them in the kitchen. He rolled his unbuttoned cuffs back twice and folded his tie into a pocket, mind working the problem. “I’m thinking, was this maybe some kind of stealth home invasion and they took her? She was a target before because of one of her legal cases.”

“If so there was no sign of struggle, and it doesn’t explain why you were unconscious in her bed,” Rosalee said, wanting to keep him focused in that direction rather than on why she and Monroe were there.

“Yeah, dude, it looks more like you two were in a hurry to get back there,” Monroe said, “and whatever happened was…you know, during or after.”

Hank roamed the condo, taking in the elegant and untouched dinner on the table and some of Adalind’s clothes still on the floor of the hallway. “I just…don’t get it.” He went outside briefly and looked around, shaking his head when he returned. “Her car’s gone. Did she just leave me like that or did someone make her drive away…?”

Monroe recognized the distinctive sound of Nick’s well-traveled Land Cruiser pulling up out front. “Thank god, he’s here.” He meant that in a number of ways.

Hank opened the door for him and reacted at the sight of the scrapes and bruises on Nick’s face; a deep cut on his lip was still oozing blood. “What the hell happened to you?”

“There’s a lot of that going around,” Nick said, looking his partner up and down. “You’re looking a lot more alive than you did when I left here.”

“Yeah, I don’t know, we’ve been trying to figure it out.” After some sleep and coffee the next morning he would wonder why he’d been trying to figure it out with Monroe and Rosalee, but not just yet. “You been in a fight?”

“I took a bad fall in the dark. She called me and said to meet her in Forest Park. I found her car and went looking in the woods but couldn’t find her and, ah, tripped over some rocks.” Slammed into them, more accurately, in a death fight with a certain blonde Hexenbiest. “By the time I made my way back to the road, her car was gone.”

“How did she sound? Any clue if someone was with her?”

“No idea. She just said meet her there. I didn’t hear anything, see anything in any direction from where her car was parked.

“None of this makes sense.” Hank shook his head. “Maybe we should put out an APB on her.”

“For what? Too soon for a missing person.” Nick looked closely at Hank. “What happened between you two?”

Hank sighed and shrugged, shaking his head. “I can’t remember. Rosalee thinks it might have been a seizure. Maybe Adalind freaked out….” But then why call Nick to meet in Forest Park? Hank decided he was still too muddled to figure it out.

“We should get you checked out by a hospital. I’ll drive.” Nick tried to guide his partner toward the door.

“Man, this late, we’ll be there all night, especially ‘cause I’m feeling okay now. They’ll triage everybody else ahead of me. Even you look worse than I do.” Hank shook his head. “I’ll call my doc in the morning.”

Looking over Hank’s shoulder at Rosalee, Nick raised an inquiring eyebrow. She nodded that it would be okay.

“All right, if you’re sure. But we’re taking my car; you probably shouldn’t be driving tonight.”

“That’s what she said.” Hank nodded toward Rosalee.

“Just in case,” she said. “Let’s lock up here and all go home. Who knows, she might come back,” while thinking, Not bloody likely since Hank revived.

Nick’s expression was cryptic. “Maybe.”

Monroe and Rosalee climbed into the back seat of the Land Cruiser, Hank up front with Nick, and rode in silence to the Spice Shop where Monroe’s car was waiting, everyone too tired and preoccupied with their own thoughts to talk.

Then Nick drove away taking his confused but very much alive partner home, leaving his Wesen friends wondering exactly what the hell had happened with Adalind Schade.

They talked about it a little on their way to Rosalee’s. Neither of them could fathom any result except that the Hexenbiest was dead.

“There was definitely a fight and plenty of blood,” Monroe said. “Fell over rocks, my ass.”

“That deep cut on his lip looked like a tear from a bite to me. I wonder how he got his blood into her?”

“With maximum prejudice, I hope. Maybe he’ll tell us, maybe he won’t; not sure I really want too much detail.”

Rosalee agreed. “As long as it’s over.”

Monroe was yawning with fatigue when they pulled up in front of Freddy’s duplex. “Oh, man, two all-nighters in a row. I’m not as young as I used to be, and these weren’t even fun.” Still, he had to joke, “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

That made her smile despite her concern for him. “Are you okay to drive? I’ve got the guest bed or the couch….”

He smiled and shook his head. “Thanks, but I’ll be home in fifteen and in my own bed in twenty, and I’ve missed too many of my meds already.” Over the two days he’d depleted the emergency supplies he kept in the Beetle’s glove box. “Just let me see you get inside safely and I’ll be on my way.”

She was still worried that he was driving so sleep deprived. “Text me when you’re home safe.”

His smile widened and he nodded. “Okay, ‘mom’.”

“I mean it.”

“I know. I will.”

And he did.

Only then could she sink into her pillows and give in at last to blessed sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> May I say an ENORMOUS "Thank You!" right here for that wonderful extensive resource for Grimm fans, the Grimm Wiki, my go-to source for spellings of hard to understand "Grimmish" words, text from Wesen and Grimm books too small to read clearly on my not-so-big screen TV, photos of devices such as the nez-soufflet, names and stories of characters major and minor...it goes on & on. The amount of time & effort they've spent compiling all that is amazing. And they welcome contributions to that enormous data bank from other fans (they vet the contributions too, keeping it as accurate as possible).
> 
> It was fun playing with my own "Grimmish" making up a Wesen species name, Vorräte-Hörnchen. I mean, why not?
> 
> And this TV episode had so many fun and touching bits, like Nick & Monroe's banter about, "Why don't you just say 'potion'?" and Monroe & Rosalee missing each other's glances after their "Real love is hard to find." "Don't I know it?" exchange.
> 
> Thank you, thank you to those of you who take the time to comment on these stories and bounce ideas around about our beloved characters and their lives; it's so much more fun this way!


	5. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And now we arrive at the events surrounding "Cat and Mouse", a very revealing episode about Rosalee's past. Because she features so prominently in the Grimm episode there's a lot of the show's dialogue and action interwoven here...but there were also large swaths Rosalee didn't know were going on, so mostly this is from her point of view. And, what else was going on in her life at this time that the Grimm writers didn't give us?
> 
> As always, no aspect of the NBC series belongs to me, I'm just having fun playing between the lines and around the edges. All honor, glory and legal rights to its proper owners!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Cat and Mouse" was a huge revealing episode about Rosalee...and then she disappeared for the rest of the Season One episodes until the last part of the season finale "Woman In Black". Why wasn't she involved in "Leave It To Beavers", "Happily Ever Aftermath" and "Big Feet"? Not even mentioned at all. This story holds my theory about that.

**Chapter Five**

Rosalee let herself into Freddy’s duplex laden with grocery bags, grateful the rain had held off long enough for her to close the shop for the day, run her errands and take the bus home before the evening drizzle began in earnest.

It had been a surprisingly peaceful week, almost eerily devoid of Grimm-inspired crises or conundrums. In fact, she hadn’t heard from Detective Burkhardt at all, even through Monroe. Fleetingly she wondered again how he had answered or evaded whatever questions his zaubertranked partner Hank had about waking up to find himself naked and confused in Adalind Schade’s bed and being watched over by Monroe, whom he knew only slightly, and herself, a near-stranger.

“Not my problem,” she said aloud, bumping the door shut with her hip and carrying the bags through to the kitchen. Putting the food and household supplies away took only minutes, just long enough for the kettle to boil for her pot of tea to go with dinner.

The whole roasted chicken she’d bought at the co-op would make four meals. She threw together veggies and salad to go with it and settled at the dining room table to enjoy her dinner and her library book in peaceful solitude.

She’d learned to avoid reading the very old and often-gruesome ancestral apothecary journals hidden in Freddy’s closet at bedtime or with meals.

Rosalee gradually relaxed while she ate and read. It had been another busy day at the shop and she’d been on her feet for most of it. No wonder Freddy had spent the money for the high quality shoes she’d found in his closet. For now it felt good to flex her toes in her slippers, free of the practical boots she wore most days.

Her phone was close at hand on the table but she wasn’t expecting any calls. Monroe had told her he’d be out at Helvetia Tavern with some friends for dinner tonight and Lionel was out of town on business, so she was expecting an undisturbed evening to herself.

As she finished dinner and went to clean up the minimal mess in the kitchen, the thought of Freddy’s shoes oddly crossed her mind again. _I still need to put together a donation, all those nice clothes and coats and shoes that need a new home._

And then there were his two dressers still untouched in the bedroom, the tall chest of drawers and the long bureau with its attached mirror. So far she’d avoided looking inside either one, more than a little leery of what she might find. _Maybe something more disturbing than his three fake passports that I stumbled on in the shop._

But when she went to the guest room to put together her outfit for work in the morning, she realized it was getting a bit ridiculous to keep her clothes in here when there were two nice dressers in the bedroom where she was actually sleeping.

 _I’ve already signed the lease with Lionel,_ she told herself firmly _. I’m going to be here for the foreseeable future. It’s been more than three weeks; I need to get on with going through the rest of Freddy’s things._

And then she allowed herself to think about her true reason for avoiding the task. _Much as I don’t want to find out, there might be things in there that could get me in trouble. If so, I need to know and figure out how to deal with them_.

She set out her clothes, shoes and jewelry for the day to come and went back to the doorway of the main bedroom. The two dressers sat there filled, no doubt, with Freddy’s socks and underwear and other personal items…and perhaps items much less ordinary.

She glanced at her watch. It was only nine, too early for bed. She could think of no more viable excuses. And now that she was facing the task, it piqued her Fuchsbau curiosity.

“Okay, then, Freddy,” she told her deceased brother. “You left all of this to me. Let’s find out what else I don’t know about you and our family.”

Moving toward the tall dresser before she could change her mind, she pulled out and inspected each of the three shallow top drawers in turn. The first held an innocent collection of cuff links, rings, random unidentified keys, a stash of emergency cash in small bills, a checkbook for his personal bank account and his actual U.S. passport good through 2015. She thumbed through it and was mildly surprised that Freddy had traveled more frequently and extensively over the past six years than she’d imagined, mostly to Europe but also Canada, Costa Rica, Belize and Australia. All of the trips were brief, only three to six days’ duration.

 _Apothecary professional conferences?_ she thought, shaking her head skeptically, though she knew such things did exist for alternative and holistic health providers, some even Wesen-only. _Vacations with Lionel? Surely not overseas for less than a week._ Freddy had never mentioned his travels to her; it seemed that he was always at the shop except for spending Christmas in Medford and Thanksgiving weekend here with her.

The second drawer held top quality cotton and linen handkerchiefs, formal silk suit pocket squares in a variety of colors and patterns that matched the ties she and Lionel had found hanging in Freddy’s closet, and even a few bow ties laid out flat; of course Freddy would never have worn the pre-tied clip on type. The third drawer had a surprising number of soft leather gloves in different shades of brown, black and gray, some lightweight and some lined for warmth. There were several pairs of thin black gloves that would allow the wearer excellent dexterity… _while masking fingerprints_ , she couldn’t help thinking.

The two deep drawers beneath held casual shirts and undershirts folded so neatly they looked like they’d just come from a package, and the larger one was filled with warm pullover sweaters in Freddy’s favored neutral and forest tones.

And that was all. Or was it?

She pulled out each drawer and peered up from beneath to see if anything might be taped to their undersides, but found nothing.

Kneeling by the lower drawers, she couldn’t ignore the suspicious sensation that she was missing something. On impulse she took out all the shirts and sweaters and felt around the bottoms of the drawers. Her strong spatial sense told her something was off here. She tapped around the inside listening for anything that didn’t sound solid; examining them closely, she found what she thought of as a reverse-TARDIS effect – the space inside the drawers appeared to be smaller than she expected from looking at their exteriors.

She took a slow, deep breath, praying that she was wrong, and went to the kitchen utility drawer for a slim flathead screwdriver.

There were indeed false bottoms in both drawers. She steeled herself as she pried up the first one, lifting it away and leaning it against the bed. There was a shallow space of maybe three quarters of an inch but it held a layer of thin brown paper envelopes. And those yielded yet another batch of counterfeit passports with Freddy’s photos in different guises and false identities hailing from Great Britain, Denmark, Italy and Switzerland along with packets of Euros and other foreign currencies, even credit cards in those other names with current dates on them.

_So you were ready to go on the run if you had to, from here or from the shop. Oh, Freddy, what were you up to?_

Her brows pinched as she took it all in. Why might he need to swiftly and anonymously leave the country? He was obviously prepared to flee from home or the shop, wherever he might be when something went down. Was that in case he didn’t have time or it might not be safe to go collect his documents from just one place or the other?

And then she wondered where else he might have stashed such essentials in case he couldn’t reach either of his own places.

She thought again about Lionel’s joking remark that perhaps Freddy had a secret life as a spy or foreign operative of some kind.

Rosalee put everything back and reassembled the drawer, not sure what to do about the cash just yet. Then kneeling in front of the deeper drawer, she pried up its false bottom – and immediately wished she hadn’t.

There beneath his sweaters, he’d hidden two handguns with silencers and several boxes of ammunition, some for a 9mm and the others for a .38 according to the ammo packaging, and their cleaning supplies.

She’d never known Freddy to handle a gun, let alone _own_ two of them.

Cautiously she used one of his undershirts to keep her fingers from leaving prints and lifted each pistol from the drawer to examine it, keeping the barrels pointed away from her on the chance they might be loaded. Both had their serial numbers ground off, a shinier patch on the gunmetal where they had been. Gun laws not being something she was conversant with, even from TV and movies she was pretty sure it was illegal to even possess a firearm that had been altered in that way, inherited or no.

“Oh, my god, Freddy, I hope these were in reserve for someone else, someone on the run you were helping, maybe.” The Calverts had long been Laufer sympathizers and supporters, even before Freddy’s close friendship and her own long ago broken love affair with Resistance leader Ian Harmon.

She’d never touched a gun before; she didn’t even trust herself to check to see if there were bullets in them. The Calverts and their kin had done all their hunting with their wits, fangs and claws, chasing down or setting traps for their edible prey…those who were still into that sort of thing.

Very carefully as if handling unexploded bombs, she replaced the pistols and covered them up with the false drawer bottom and all of Freddy’s sweaters.

Sliding the drawer back onto its glides, she closed it gently and sat back staring at it, hands folded on her thighs. _What that hell can I do with these guns? I’m not even sure how to get rid of them without getting myself in trouble! Better check the Internet…or maybe just ask Nick._

Then she turned toward the long bureau, giving it a baleful stare. _In for a penny…._

The upper drawers held his underwear, as expected; apparently sometimes he favored boxers, other times briefs. _TMI_ , she thought as she opened the third top drawer to find fleece lined long thermal underwear of the type favored by winter sports enthusiasts, though she’d never known Freddy to be fond of adventuring in seriously cold or snowy weather. There were no false bottoms in these drawers. She put their contents aside for disposal.

The remaining drawers were filled to the top with sweater vests, T-shirts, pajamas, workout clothes and socks – lots of socks, one drawer for neatly rolled dress socks, another filled with thick athletic and hiking socks and silly novelty socks friends had given him, including several pairs from her that sported cartoon foxes and holiday themes. The red and green Krampus socks she’d given him as a joke gift last Christmas made her smile even as momentary tears welled in her eyes.

Under the sweater vests was another false drawer bottom. And under the workout sweats and, awkwardly, jockstraps and groin protectors, was still another. Her brows furrowed at those last items, Freddy never having gone in for contact sports or martial arts of any kind. _That I knew of…_

What she found hidden in these drawers proved as disturbing as the guns, if not more so.

There were more passports with fake foreign identities – for both of her parents, DeEtta and for Rosalee herself. Her father’s and mother’s had expired in the years shortly after George’s death but those for the sisters were still good through 2016.

Studying the two he’d had made for her, Rosalee wondered if she could have passed as an Australian or South African citizen. Were Freddy and their parents into things so risky that the whole family might need to suddenly flee to foreign countries under new identities…and possibly not together?

Bundled with the passports were more packets of foreign money, assorted cell phone SIM cards and batteries, two brand new burner phones still in their packaging and some local business cards: “Reginald’s Camera – New and Used Cameras, Photography Supplies, Passport Photos” and “Bronson Photography Studio – weddings, portraits and restorations”.

 _Well, it doesn’t take a super sleuth to figure out what other, unadvertised specialties those shops handled._ She committed their names to memory and put everything back where she’d found it.

The envelopes in the final drawer’s hiding space were truly frightening, and possibly, though she fervently hoped not, explained the guns.

The letters inside were ostensibly business or social correspondence, some in English but mostly in German, Dutch or, oddly, what she suspected was Flemish. The ones in English seemed slightly stilted as if foreigners not completely fluent had written them while thinking in their native tongue and mentally translating. She could puzzle out some of the German but could only piece together rough meanings of the other two since they did not contain medical or esoteric Wesen apothecary terms.

In each case that she could discern, the somewhat cryptic letters concerned the cancellation of goods or services from a specified third party, to be effected immediately. The names of the correspondents were no one she recognized, the persons nor the businesses.

Knowing of her family’s long term connections with the Wesen Council, she felt a deep chill crawl down her spine as she wondered if these were Council orders of execution…and _who_ precisely had been charged with carrying out that sentence?

 _But if they were, why would Freddy keep them?_ Their dates were from years ago, several from the decade before their father had died. _Had there been a temporary stay of execution? Or am I just being paranoid?_

Had her father and maybe even Freddy, mild mannered purveyors of herbs, spices and exotic cures, also been secret Council operatives and enforcers?

_And who could I ask? My mother?_

Rosalee couldn’t imagine for a moment that Gloria would be completely in the dark if such things were going on. Her parents had shared everything in their long marriage and loved each other dearly. And they had always been deeply involved with the “creature” community, dedicated to Wesen welfare and safety while mainstreaming among the kehrseiten; it was a generational thing on both sides of her family.

Rosalee sat on the floor a long while pondering what to do with her discoveries. Even after she got up to take her shower and prepare for bed, her thoughts were reeling with disturbing speculations.

It did not make for a restful night’s sleep.

 

The next morning was damp and chilly, all the sidewalks wet and strewn with fallen leaves from the breezy overnight rain, but for now the clouds were high and bright suggesting a brief respite. Pulling on her warm red knit cap and cozy brown jacket, Rosalee decided to walk all the way to work, feeling the need for exercise beyond running around the shop and climbing up and down its ladder and the basement stairs to put together the remedies her clients needed.

She was preoccupied with her discoveries from the night before, scarcely aware of what was going on around her beyond what was necessary to walk the busy streets safely.

Tempted to share at least some of Freddy’s secrets with Monroe, she thought about how much would be too much information. He’d taken the mystery of Freddy’s phony passports in stride, content to leave them a mystery that didn’t affect her, or him, directly.

But it was dangerous to get close to people involved with certain Old World customs, organizations and conflicts that had spread their insidious tentacles around the globe…even as far as Portland. Becoming a city of this size and sophistication, especially once it gained its international airport, had been a mixed blessing for old Stumptown.

And she certainly didn’t want to put Monroe at risk from knowing too much about certain things…if her worst suspicions about her family proved true. Or, she admitted, put him off their burgeoning friendship that she enjoyed and needed so much.

It was still early when she arrived at the shop, hours before her official ten o’clock opening – not that many people paid much attention to the posted schedule when they needed something. She planned to cook up some oatmeal and brew a pot of tea for breakfast once she arrived so that she could have some quiet time to catch up on orders and inventory before customers started coming in, needing her attention.

Distracted as she was when she unlocked the front door and stepped inside, her Fuchsbau senses and instincts didn’t kick in until after she’d flipped the sign to “open”, her back to the shop’s shadowy spaces. A mere instant before the lurking intruder seized her from behind, pinning her arms to her sides and covering her mouth to stifle her screams, that wordless frisson of alarm shot through her along with the powerful jolt of fight-or-flight adrenaline.

Memories of previous attacks flashed through her mind – the Skalengecks in the shop basement, other assailants on the mean streets and Jay dens during her years of addiction. She reacted fast and ruthlessly, stomping his foot with her boot and jabbing her elbow back hard into his gut. The instant she felt his grip relax, hearing his startled grunt of pain, she broke free, shoved him backwards with all her strength and bolted for the door. She heard him fall heavily, knocking over the backgammon game set up near the door for customers sampling tea or waiting for prescriptions, the pieces scattering and pinging off the floor.

She was partway out into the daylight when she heard the strained voice calling after her, “Rosalee….”

It was a voice she knew so well…and could never forget. She turned to see his pained face and the blood on his shirt and jacket. He was slumped on the floor where she’d shoved him in her flight.

“ _Ian?_ Oh, my god!” She closed and locked the shop door and rushed over to kneel beside him. “What happened to you?”

In that so familiar British accent he said simply, “I was shot.”

“I have to get you to a hospital!” She reached for her purse and phone only to feel his hand close on her wrist to stop her.

“No, no, no, you can’t. If they find out where I am, I’m as good as dead. Where’s Freddy?”

At that she sat back a bit; of course, he wouldn’t know yet. “Freddy was killed,” she told him sadly. “In a robbery a few weeks ago.”

Ian’s desperate blue eyes stared up into hers at this news; then he lowered them in distress. “Freddy was supposed to have some papers for me. That’s why I’m here.”

“Papers for what?”

“A new identity.”

Already Freddy’s secrets were intruding on her new life here in Portland. Her voice low and concerned, she asked, “Who’s trying to kill you?”

“It’s better that you don’t know and it’s better if I leave.” He was struggling to get up but couldn’t even manage to stay on his hands and knees. With his right side turned to her now, she saw more of the bloodstain that had spread, large and wet, down his side as he groaned in pain at the futile effort.

Her training kicked in. In a flash she ran the triage evaluation: he was breathing, able to feel and move his extremities, respond to questions…and while there was blood soaking his clothing, from what she could see it didn’t appear to be bleeding copiously now.

Listening closely she was relieved there was no sucking sound when he inhaled – no air being drawn in through the wound, which would indicate a collapsed lung; he wasn’t coughing, and there was no bloody foam in his mouth.

Wherever Ian had been when he was shot, she knew he wouldn’t have made it very far in that condition. So most likely the bullet hadn’t penetrated his chest cavity.

“You’re not going anywhere. Not like this,” she said decisively. “Let me help you up.” She put her arms around him, and supporting most of his weight helped him stagger to the treatment cot in the side room. “I’ll get you something for the pain, and then I’ll get some help.”

Seeing how much he was hurting, she went to mix a strong analgesic and sedative, preparing for what was to come. When she held the cup to his lips he drank it trustingly.

“Sorry,” he breathed, after he’d managed to swallow all of it. “Sorry to…do this to you. Nowhere else to go.”

“You’re here now, safe for the moment. Are you feeling the pain killer yet?” She didn’t mention the sedative in case he would object, but it was necessary.

“Starting to feel fuzzy…like the pain’s there but not part of me…”

“Good, that’s what we want. Relax and let it help, you’re going to fade out a bit.” She lifted him enough to gently peel the bloody jacket and shirt away from his chest and draw them down off his right arm. He helped as best he could, leaning his weight on his left arm braced against the bed frame though he hissed with pain, and then let her pull both garments around his back and off his other arm.

The effort seemed to drain the rest of his strength…that and her powerful medications taking effect.

“Okay, I’m going to clean you up so I can see what we’re dealing with.” There was no exit wound so the bullet was still inside him somewhere, she only hoped not too deep. “You’re not actively bleeding much right now, so looks like it didn’t hit any major vessels.”

She left him long enough to fill a bowl with warm water and collect a large squeeze bottle of sterile saline, rolls of gauze and several towels. She tucked one of the towels along his side to soak up the moisture when she swabbed the area around his wound.

“Can you lift your arm above your head so I can get to the wound? I’ll guide you.” She was pleased that he was able to comply, though with a sharp pained intake of breath, and she helped him settle his arm against the rolled towels, elbow bent and resting on his pillow, giving her a clear view of his injury.

“How bad?” Ian managed.

There was a ragged hole beneath and slightly behind his right arm, seeping a small amount of blood and clear fluid. She soaked some gauze with the saline and began cleaning around the wound.

“I’m sure it doesn’t feel like it, but you were lucky. It’s either a low velocity handgun round or they got you from a very long distance.” She remembered her father explaining the difference between damage caused by low and high velocity bullets. “There’s no gunpowder residue, no exit wound.”

“Definitely a…pistol. I saw the shooter…across a wide street from me. It was dark…several shots missed then this one…hit my rucksack.” He stopped for breath, eyes closing briefly; the sedative was taking effect. “Force knocked me down. Guess the bullet pierced the rucksack and then…got me. I had to leave it behind…he was coming after me.”

“Well, your rucksack probably saved your life. I’m pretty sure the bullet didn’t get past your ribcage…or you wouldn’t have made it here.” His skin around the entry wound was clean now and looked healthy except immediately surrounding the bullet’s cavitation, where it was understandably swollen and red.

“Everything…I had…was in it. Pretty sure…he’s got it now.”

“Don’t worry about that for now. This may sting, I need to irrigate the wound.”

But the shock and medications had numbed him enough that he didn’t react to the gentle stream of saline she was squirting into the bullet hole, flushing out bits of damaged tissue and fibers from his clothes. Once it was clean, she pressed gentle fingertips into the skin surrounding his wound; the hard lump of the bullet was lodged in muscle and soft tissues below his arm. Carefully drawing the edges of the wound apart, she could see its trajectory but not deeply enough to see much of the bullet itself.

Rosalee debated about leaving it to avoid causing more trauma and bleeding. But Fuchsbauer were particularly sensitive to lead poisoning…and given Ian’s life and mission, he wasn’t going to any proper hospital anytime soon.

“Okay, it’s clean now and not bleeding much.” She placed a thick gauze pad over the wound and gently eased his right arm down by his side, holding the pad in place. “I want you to rest and let the medicine work.” She drew a light brown blanket up over his bare chest and touched his forehead to check for fever, then gently stroked his stubbled cheek.

Ian lay as she’d placed him, eyes closed, breathing regularly, his color still fairly good so he likely hadn’t lost too much blood and showed no signs of going into shock. She knew what she needed to do, but quailed at the thought of doing it her very first time alone. And she’d need more hands than she had.

She went to the deep shelf where Freddy kept their father’s big leather medical bag, opened it with foreboding and reverence and checked inside. All the instruments she’d need were there, just as she’d seen them time and again when her father used them for procedures like this one.

 _Okay,_ she breathed silently, _I’m really doing this. But I need help…who?_

Monroe – of course. She hesitated a moment, not wanting to draw him into this with all its potential risks. But she had no one else in Portland to turn to, no one else to trust. She took her phone from her purse and called.

“Rosalee?”

“I’m sorry to call so early…”

“No problem, I’m done with Pilates and just finishing breakfast. What’s up?”

“I need your help at the shop. Someone broke in….”

“ _What?_ Are you okay? Are they gone? Did you call the cops?”

“I’m okay and...this isn’t a ‘call the cops’ situation. I’ll explain when you get here…please? Hurry?”

“Wesen thing, huh?” Monroe was already up from the table and reaching for his jacket and keys as he headed toward his front door. “On my way.”

Twenty minutes later she heard Monroe’s tapping at the shop door. She hurried to let him in and locked the door swiftly behind him. The shade was already down and sign turned to ‘closed’.

The moment he crossed the threshold he inhaled sharply. “What’s wrong? I smell blood!”

“I know. Come with me.” She turned toward the closed blue double doors into the side room, his plaintive voice following her.

“ _Please_ tell me this isn’t another Zaubertrank….”

“No, this one’s a bullet.” She opened the doors and led the way in.

He took it mostly in stride, shrugging in his jacket. “Oh – well. Look at that.”

While she was waiting for Monroe, she’d set up her operating space as best she could in the Spice Shop. The light from a desk lamp and table lamp was directed on the cot where Ian lay and a medical book lay open where she could see its instructive diagrams from her seat at Ian’s side.

He lay still on the cot, his eyes closed.

“Ian?” Rosalee said gently. “This is my friend Monroe. Monroe, this is Ian.”

The wounded man’s eyelids barely fluttered.

“Hey,” Monroe said, uncertainly.

“Is he a doctor?” Ian murmured.

“No, but he’s going to help me get the bullet out.”

“ _Why_ aren’t we taking him to a hospital?” Monroe asked, afraid to hear the answer.

“We can’t. We have to do this _now_.” She went to get the leather medical bag.

“I’m sorry…I don’t entirely understand the situation here?”

“Ian is an old friend, he’s on the run. Someone tried to kill him.” She hoisted the bag onto a table by the cot and opened it.

“Well – what did he do?”

She glanced at Ian, who had subsided into a deeper sleep, and began fishing for the instruments she needed. “Have you ever heard of the Laufer?”

“The Laufer. You mean, the Resistance? Yeah, sure, but that’s not here.” Monroe was shaking his head. “That’s Old Country stuff.”

“Well, it’s here now. That’s Ian Harmon. Have you heard of him?”

“Really?” Monroe was impressed; he looked over at Ian and back at Rosalee. Voice hushed, he asked, “The _journalist_?”

“Yeah, well – he does that, too. He’s one of the leaders of the Resistance.” She’d pulled Monroe into this; he deserved the truth.

He got the gravity of their situation instantly. Eyes wide, he glanced again at Ian and back to Rosalee, voice low and alarmed. “So, are we talkin’ about the Verrat? Because those guys are _serious!_ ”

“I think so,” she admitted.

Arms braced straight on the table, his head down, Monroe took in this very dangerous news. But he didn’t leave.

Rosalee briskly got to the business at hand. “Look, I cleaned the wound, I can see the bullet; it’s not that far in.”

Monroe sighed, resigned to help. “And we’re going to get it out _how_?”

She hugged the big leather medical bag, stroking its sides as if absorbing George Calvert’s knowledge and experience from it. “This was my father’s. I used to watch him do this kind of thing.” She closed her eyes a moment. “I just…don’t want to do it alone.”

When she met his eyes, Monroe said softly, “Okay. What do you want me to do?”

It would only occur to Monroe later to wonder why George Calvert used to “do this kind of thing” with any regularity, and in the presence of his young daughter. He was about to discover that she’d grown up in this secretive other life with her family helping Wesen on the run, especially Laufer and other targets of the Royals and their allies.

“Wash your hands, and sterilize these.” She handed him the surgical instruments.

He took them and turned away. “Okay…how, with what?”

“Boiling water first, the kettle’s hot; then rubbing alcohol. There’re some big bottles of that on the wall shelf behind you. It’s the best I’ve got.”

While Monroe prepared her instruments, she arranged Ian on the cot with his right arm up, elbow bent on the pillow and hand resting above his head. She rolled up a thick green towel and tucked it against his side to support him in the surgical position and to absorb any escaped fluids. She folded the blanket down at his waist and draped a blue cloth over his bare chest except for the area where she needed to work.

Rosalee dabbed liquid lidocaine into and around the edges of the wound. Ian was out, but she wanted to minimize the pain of this procedure so it wouldn’t jolt him back to consciousness while she was working.

She’d spread another green towel on the small table beside Ian for her instruments, and had cut a supply of layered gauze squares to blot the inevitable blood seepage from the procedure.   There were thick sterile pads permeated with kaolin to promote blood clotting that she would use over the wound when they were finished.

Monroe returned with the instruments. “Okay, so this is a little…no, way out of my experience, so you need to tell me exactly what to do. My only medical knowledge is, you know, basic first aid, the minor post-fight and hunting injury kind of thing.”

“I’ll need you to hold this retractor to keep the wound open, so I can get in there and see what I’m doing. You sit here, on his other side so I have room to work; you can lean over him and brace your other arm on the cot frame. It’s going to take awhile, your back and shoulder will get tired if you’re just sitting up.”

“I get the feeling you’ve done my part before, then.”

“A few times.”

He watched, impressed, as she attached the retractor to the bottom edge of the bullet hole and drew it down toward Monroe. The wound gaped open, the bullet’s passage inflamed and oozing.

“Okay, grab this and hold it just like that.” She flashed him a quick smile. “I’m glad you’re Blutbad. A little blood and flesh won’t bother you.”

“On the contrary. It tends to bother us in a kind of…exciting way. But I’m _wieder_ , and this situation isn’t exactly stimulating.” He held the retractor steady and watched her insert a thin probe with a small spoon-like tip into the wound. “What’s that?”

“Appropriately enough, a bullet probe. I’m hoping the bullet’s shallow enough and not too tightly imbedded so I can just kind of scoop it out of there without having to dig much.” She was intensely focused on what she was seeing and feeling with the probe.

“You’re sure it didn’t get between his ribs?”

“No, it’s lodged against one but didn’t penetrate the chest cavity…or he’d almost certainly be dead already. I could palpate it; it’s down in the muscle and subcutaneous space between the skin and the ribs. When I spread the edges of the wound I could just barely see it down in there.”

She paused to blot some fresh blood oozing from the wound from newly damaged capillaries, then tried again to dislodge the bullet with her probe.

“Damn, it’s not budging with this. I’m going to need forceps to get a grip on it.” She placed the bloody probe on the green instrument towel and reached for the slender scissors-handled forceps.

Monroe winced. “Oww. But at least this isn’t like the old movies where they just pour whiskey over a knife and start digging.”

“Thank god for that. Mostly that did way more harm than good, not even counting the risk of infection.” She inserted the curved tips of the forceps into the wound. “Pull back just a little more now, I’ve got to get down in there.”

Monroe watched, mulling over their treacherous situation. “How do we know he’s telling the truth? About who he is, who he’s running from…any of it?”

She didn’t look up. “He was a friend of Freddy’s.”

“Now, don’t get me wrong; I liked Freddy, but…he was involved with some seriously shady people.”

“Freddy made some mistakes.” And with a meaningful edge to her voice, she reminded him, “Just like we _all_ do.” Then she pressed her lips together tightly, deciding he deserved the whole truth. “But I knew him, too.”

“Well enough to trust him?”

She gave a long sigh as she exchanged her forceps for a pair with longer tips to insert into the wound. “I was… _with_ him for a year and a half.”

“Oh.” Monroe’s eyes widened as that sank in. “We’re talking more than just…”

“Yes.” She nodded, focused on her work. “It was a long time ago.”

Monroe hesitated but had to know. “Can I ask what happened?”

Her head bowed close over Ian’s chest, long hair spilling low, she turned her face toward Monroe briefly to smile at her male friend’s loaded question. “He left.” Still smiling at his curiosity, she turned back to her patient. “I _wasn’t happy_ about it.” That was the understatement of the decade.

Probing carefully with the thin tips of her forceps, she felt her quarry in its grasp and carefully closed the instrument around the bullet. Certain it was gripped securely, she drew the deadly lump of lead slowly from the wound. “But that is…” Successful and relieved, she tilted her head back to regard the bloody bullet clamped in her forceps. “…all in the past.”

She dropped the bullet into a round steel dish where it clanked against the metal. Monroe was watching her seriously, thinking his own private thoughts. She put down her forceps and nodded once to him. He released the retractor and straightened up with relief. The worst was finished.

Rosalee clipped away the ragged edges of skin around the bullet hole that would have gone necrotic and gave the wound a final cleansing, irrigating it with the sterile saline. Then she spread antibiotic gel around and into the wound before covering the red hole with the kaolin gauze pad to staunch any postoperative bleeding and keep it clean.

“No stitches?” Monroe asked, watching her begin to bandage the wound.

“It was a low velocity bullet, permanent cavitation, so, no.” Seeing his lowered eyebrow she explained, “The tissues didn’t close in behind the entry point; it stayed open, so I was able to clean out the shirt fibers and bits of damaged tissue without cutting into him. So now we just put on some antibiotic and cover the wound, change the dressings regularly and let it heal from the inside out. I’ll give him some oral antibiotics, too, when he’s awake, just to make sure.”

Monroe stood, retractor still in hand. “Look, if somebody’s really trying to kill this guy – we should call Nick.”

Disturbed and wary, Rosalee looked up at him from treating and bandaging Ian’s wound.

“I mean, I don’t know what he’ll say about being introduced to a Grimm?” Monroe went on. “But right now this guy doesn’t have a lot to say about anything.” He walked around the end of the bed, facing the shop’s obscured windows, but looked back at Rosalee and Ian just as their patient began regaining consciousness.

His voice weak and slurred, Ian moaned, “Rosalee…?” and coughed a bit. “Rosalee…”

She took his hand and stroked his hair, gazing down at his face. “I’m here.”

Monroe watched from across the room as Ian rolled his head on the pillow toward Rosalee and _woged_ – Fuchsbau, red and white hair covering all of his exposed body, eyes amber, ears pointed and furry. With a small smile she _woged_ in response, looking down at him tenderly. They gazed at each other making soft, almost purring sounds.

It was too intimate…and too disturbing, for Monroe to watch. He looked aside from the sight of Rosalee communing with her old lover, suddenly dealing with feelings of his own that were stronger than he’d let himself recognize.

The gentle animal sounds faded, and when Monroe looked back both of the Fuchsbauer were in their human forms. Ian sat up carefully on the cot and Rosalee showed him the bullet in its steel tray.

“It’s out. I’m not sure of the caliber.” She hesitated, then said, “You probably know. The wound was fairly clean and not too deep. We just need to keep fresh bandages on it and dose you with antibiotics to be safe.” While she spoke she was wrapping a roll of gauze around his torso to hold the medicated pad in place over the wound.

“Thank you.” _For everything_ , he meant.

“We’ll put a sling on you after you get dressed. I can’t launder your shirt here; I could try to hand wash it….”

“It’s okay. I’ve worn worse.” At least now the blood on his clothing was dry. He let her help him ease back into his red-stained shirt and dark olive jacket, wincing slightly when they had to put his right arm through the sleeves. The fog from the sedative was clearing rapidly but the pain meds were still helping. “Can I get up now?”

“We’ll see. I’ll help you over to the work table; as long as there’s no vertigo you can sit there while I fix something for inflammation and pain.”

He draped his left arm over her shoulders and leaned on her slightly for support while he gained his feet. Within a few steps he was limping steadily on his own, by sheer will and thanks to his Wesen healing powers.

She took him to a stool at the table and settled him there. “Sit – stay!” she teased sternly, and Ian gave her a sharp look, smiling, while Monroe took all this in from across the room.

She was back in a few moments with a large steaming mug. Handing it to Ian she ordered, “ _Drink_ this.”

He tasted it and grimaced at its bitterness but under her watchful eyes he made himself swallow it. Between sips, he looked back and forth between Rosalee and Monroe. Very seriously, he said, “Look, I hope you warned your friend that…it could be very dangerous for either of you to be wherever I am.”

Monroe took that as his opening. “Hey, you want to meet someone who’s dangerous to be around? You should meet my friend Nick. He’s a friend who….” He fumbled for the words while Ian took another drink and made a pained face at the taste. “He can, well, ahhh…”

Rosalee just came out with it. “He’s a Grimm.”

Ian’s mouth dropped open and he stared at them, stunned.

“Whoa. Okay,” Monroe said, “so much for the hemming and hawing.”

“Are you _serious_?” Ian asked.

Monroe answered. “Well, yes. Very. But look, he’s not what you’ve ever heard about.”

“He’s right,” Rosalee said. “Nick is _not_ what you’d expect.” Ian was staring at both of them in disbelief. “He caught the men responsible for killing Freddy. And he helped me when I first got here and had to deal with…his murder, and the shop, and everything.”

By now Ian was up and pacing, listening but finding all of this hard to accept.

Rosalee went on. “And he got Monroe to help me when it was dangerous for me.” She looked at her friend with deep gratitude. “Monroe’s been helping me ever since.”

His back to them now, Ian said darkly, “And how much did you have to _pay_ this Grimm to go after the men who killed Freddy?”

“I didn’t have to pay him _anything_ ,” Rosalee said hotly.

Touching his index finger to his face, Monroe made his next point. “Yeah, um…that’s the other shoe. He’s a cop.”

Ian turned sharply to stare at them again, mouth open in shock.

“ _I know_ ,” Monroe said. “My first encounter with him wasn’t exactly friendly. But let me tell ya’, Nick is the real deal. And if you need help in this town, Nick is the man…or, the Grimm.” Speaking to Ian’s expression of disbelief, he went on. “I know it’s a lot to fathom, but…he’s friends with a Blutbad,” indicating himself, and then looking aside at Rosalee, “and a Fuchsbau.”

Rosalee nodded as Ian slowly came toward them, listening intently.

“Listen,” Monroe said earnestly. “Dude – he has _saved_ my ass, and I’ve saved his. Believe it or not, he’s just trying to do the right thing.”

Ian spoke directly to Monroe. “Do you know about the Resistance?”

“Yeah…?”

“Do you know who the Verrat sends after anyone associated with it?”

“No….”

_“Hundjäger.”_

Monroe closed his eyes at this deadly news, then looked from Rosalee to Ian. “That is _so_ not good.”

Ian looked at his former love. “Rosalee, do you trust this man?”

“I do.”

Ian nodded slowly. His tone more than a touch sardonic, he said, “Well, then. By all means. Put my life in his hands.”

Monroe took out his phone and called.

 

At the precinct, Nick answered, “Burkhardt,” without checking caller I.D.

“Can you get down to the Spice Shop – ASAP?”

“Why, what’s going on?”

“It’s kind of complicated. There’s a man here…he’s like a civil rights activist-slash-I dunno, freedom fighter? With a bullet wound.”

“I’ll be right there.”

 

Of course it had to start raining again.

Right after his call Monroe went outside to wait for Nick, pacing back and forth under the shop’s entry overhang, hands in his pockets except for frequently checking his wristwatch and making anxious breathy whistling sounds. It was only minutes but seemed an eternity before Nick arrived.

Monroe ushered him into the shop, patting Nick’s back. “Good, you made it.” He shut and locked the door, the “closed” sign still turned out toward the street. Nick looked at him for explanation. “Okay – Rosalee called me this morning, _early_. She said she had some kind of breaking and entering problem.”

“But you said ‘bullet wound’.”

“Yeah, I know, hang on. I’m gettin’ to that.” He led Nick to the left through the blue doors into the workroom, and nodded to Ian where he sat at the table, his arm in the sling.

But coming in behind Monroe, Nick saw the man they were hunting for in the Shanghai Tunnel Bar murder that had happened just a few hours ago. Drawing his weapon and aiming at Ian, he shouted, “Don’t move!”

“Whoa!” Monroe yelled. He and Rosalee moved quickly to block Nick’s aim while Ian stood up and raised his good arm in alarm.

Rosalee moved back toward Ian, her arms outstretched to shield him. “Nick. Nick! Wait…wait…”

Nick had his pistol trained on Ian. “This man’s wanted for murder!”

Rosalee looked back and forth between the Grimm and Ian, confused. _How did Nick know anything about Ian Harmon?_

Acidly, quoting Monroe’s words of assurance back at them in his British accent, Ian said, “Well, I guess he’s just trying to do the right thing.”

The accent only confirming his identification of his suspect, Nick slowly advanced on Ian but Rosalee stayed between them, arms spread and moving to block his aim.

“I found his passport next to the bartender that _he_ shot,” Nick told them, face hard as he stared at Ian.

“Ian lost his bag when _he_ was shot!” Rosalee told him, palms out to keep Nick away. “That’s how the guy who _shot_ _him_ got his passport!”

“That’s what he told you?” Nick scoffed.

“ _When_ was the bartender shot?” Rosalee challenged.

“Four hours ago.”

“Then this _can’t_ be him, Nick!” Monroe insisted. “We’ve been with him longer than that.”

“Ian’s been here since I opened this morning,” Rosalee said.

Ian spoke directly to Nick, voice steady. “Clearly he wants you to find me because he can’t. That’s why he shot the bartender. If you arrest me right now, then he’ll know exactly where I am.”

Aside to Rosalee, his aim never wavering, Nick asked, “Did you check him for weapons?”

“He doesn’t have any. He came here because my _brother_ was supposed to help him.”

Nick’s trust in his friends and their determined arguments persuaded him for the moment. He lowered his gun and everyone stood down in relief.

“Well,” Monroe said. He stretched out his arms to make the belated proper introductions. “Nick Burkhardt, meet Ian Harmon. Ian – Nick.”

The bloodied and bedraggled Resistance leader said shortly, “Pleasure.”

Nick holstered his gun. “The man who’s trying to kill you – what’s his name?”

“Edgar Waltz.” He pronounced it like the English word for the dance. “He’s an enforcer for the Verrat.”

“The Verrat?” Nick reacted with surprise and doubt. “But I thought they only operated in Europe.”

“Their influence is spreading. They occupy positions of power everywhere.”

This was worse than even Rosalee and Monroe knew. Monroe looked out into the empty shop; closed sign or no, they could take no chance of this being overheard beyond this room. He quietly closed the blue double doors while Ian went on.

“Politics, industry, organized crime…anything that is corruptible is susceptible to their influence.” He looked pointedly at the detective. “Even law enforcement.”

“Nick,” Monroe said, “these guys make the Spanish Inquisition look like SPCA.” He watched Nick sit down on a stool by the worktable as the Grimm took all this in. “Ian’s Resistance group, the Laufer…is the only thing that stands in their way.”

“This world is on the brink of war.” Ian got up and started pacing. “The turmoil in the Middle East, the crises in Europe, the Arab Spring… _all_ of it is tied together. Agents of the Verrat working for the Seven Houses have infiltrated the highest levels of all governments.”

This was news to Nick. “The Seven Houses?”

“The seven Royal families,” Ian said.

Nick glanced at Monroe for confirmation and his Blutbad friend nodded, face solemn.

“This is not a new struggle,” Ian informed the Grimm. “It’s been going on for centuries. With this struggle the Royal families recognize opportunities to gain _more_ control. People driven by fear choose stability over freedom…when their neighbors start to die.”

Her arms braced on the table, Rosalee watched as Nick absorbed this speech. His skepticism was apparent; it was a lot to accept.

“My parents were part of the Resistance,” she said. “And my grandparents. My brother. I never wanted to be involved; it always seemed so far away.”

Ian looked darkly at Nick. “ _Your_ people changed the balance of power when they decided to work for the Royal families.”

Nick shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“ _Grimms!”_ This American Grimm was more ignorant of his history than Ian had anticipated. “Evidently, you don’t even _know_ how valuable you are to the Royals.”

One arm resting on the table, Nick bowed his head briefly at this news. But then he sat up, hands out to call a halt. “Look – I don’t mean to be insensitive, but right now I’m trying to find a murderer, and…” he waved at Ian and Rosalee, “…not get a Wesen history lesson!”

“Nick,” Rosalee implored, “Ian needs your help. We have to get him out of here before Waltz finds him. The only reason he’s not dead is the bullet went through his pack first.”

“And he lost his papers,” Monroe added. “And without them…he can’t leave.” He looked at Nick meaningfully.

Incredulous, Nick asked, “Oh – are we talking _false documents_ to get him out of the country?”

Monroe’s eyes shifted away, then back to Nick. “I’m sorry.”

Nick exhaled sharply. “ _Haaah!_ This just keeps getting better and better.”

“Rosalee’s brother was the last stop for Wesen trying to get out of the country,” Ian told him. “He was going to help me.”

“All right, look,” Nick said. “If all this is true, then the most important thing for me to do is to find Edgar Waltz. I can’t promise anything else yet.”

Ian was nodding. “Okay. Yeah. Fair enough.”

Nick asked, “Does Waltz know about Freddy?”

“No.” Ian shook his head with certainty. “Well, if he did, I would be dead by now.” He looked over at Rosalee and Monroe. “And so would they.”

Arms folded across his chest, Monroe looked down, knowing it was true. Out of nowhere, they were in a desperate situation.

Getting up, Nick told them all, “Stay here for now.” Then to Rosalee, whom he was realizing had a lot more to her than he’d suspected, “Do _you_ know where you can get him new papers?”

“I think so,” she said, to Monroe’s surprise. “We were looking through the shop and found a bunch of fake passports of my brother’s.” Monroe nodded confirmation of that, but she went on. “I know the man who did them. His name is Reginald….”

His hand out, Nick warned her, “ _Don’t_ tell me any more, okay?”

She stopped. “Okay.”

Nick looked at the three of them with a tight smile. “I’ll call you when I get something.”

“Thanks, Nick,” Monroe said with relief, giving the Grimm a pat on his back as Nick left. Then, alone with Rosalee and Ian, he asked her, “You’ve known this how long?”

“I just found out last night. I was cleaning out Freddy’s dressers and I found some…interesting things. Including a business card for Reginald’s Camera in with more counterfeit passports. There was a card for another shop underneath but…I feel pretty sure that’s the one Freddy used.”

She met Ian’s eyes and could tell he was wondering what else she’d found hidden in Freddy’s things. He knew more about her brother than she ever had, at least in this realm. _Maybe I can give him those guns…._

“This,” Monroe said doubtfully, “…this could get really dangerous.”

“It already is. Deadly dangerous,” Ian said. He was looking at Rosalee.

She felt a cold stillness within, fear imprisoned by necessity and courage. “I need a photo I.D. An alias.”

Ian pulled his wallet out of a back pocket and handed her a Louisiana driver’s license that identified him as “Lester Cullum” of 2270 Verbena Ave., Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Monroe watched with alarm. “Wait – no! Tell me where to go. I’ll do it. You stay here!”

“It won’t work,” Rosalee told him. “I’m not even sure he’ll do it for me; he doesn’t know me.”

“I thought you said you knew the man,” Ian said.

“I know his business name from the card, that’s all. But he knew Freddy; I’ll have to convince him it’s safe to work with me.”

“Ohhh, man, I really don’t like this!” Monroe groaned.

“It’s broad daylight, the streets are busy. How likely are the Verrat to gun down someone out in public with so many witnesses and cell phone cameras?” she said.

“That won’t slow Waltz down for an instant,” Ian told them. “He’s that ruthless and brazen. And it’s always worked for him so far.”

“Well…any better ideas? Anyone?” She looked from one man to the other as they shook their heads and lowered their eyes. Then she tucked the license into her purse, pulled on her knit cap and jacket, and made her way several blocks through Chinatown following the directions on her cell to Reginald’s Camera.

Like the business card, the shop window in the shabby but revitalizing neighborhood advertised “Photographic Supplies – Framing – Used Cameras – Passport Photos” above and below the “Reginald’s Camera” logo.

When she entered his museum of a camera shop, the somewhat portly, graying man was alone and focused on what he was doing. Without looking up he asked, “May I help you?”

“My brother sent me.”

“Who?” He seemed disinterested.

“Freddy.”

He looked up sharply at that, suddenly guarded, and glanced at the front door.

Taking a chance in case she was mistaken about him, Rosalee said in a low, urgent voice, “I _know_ you helped him. And now I need your help. Please.”

Reginald was noncommittal. “What do you want?”

“A passport.” She took Ian’s/Lester’s driver’s license out of her purse and showed him. “Do you know who this is?”

Seeing _Ian Harmon’s_ face on the license, the Mauzhertz quailed. “I can’t.”

“He’s been shot. He came to Freddy for help.” If Reginald truly were a Resistance ally, he would know that Freddy was dead. “ _I’m_ helping him now.” Desperately she added, “I don’t know where else to go.”

Reginald was looking past her at a gallery of large framed photos on the far wall, a woman and her three children. He took a long breath and relented, nodding, and with a deep sigh accepted the Louisiana license. “I’m gonna need some time.”

When he retreated to the dim rooms in the back of the shop, Rosalee’s long anxious wait began.

She had way too much time to explore the old camera shop with its extensive collection of antique cameras, and to look at the family portraits on that wall. She decided that he must have thought of his own family when he was staring at those portraits and how he’d want someone to help them in this situation. Most likely the people on the wall _were_ his family.

 

Hours passed and Reginald did not emerge. Nor, oddly, did any other customers come in, even to look around; she wondered what other services this apparently little-patronized camera shop was fronting for. Monroe was texting her frequently asking for updates but she had nothing new to tell him. She’d begun to worry that the frightened shop owner had abandoned her and left through the back of the store, but when she called out to him his voice came from behind a darkroom door.

“I’m working as fast as I can. It must be done properly to pass inspection!”

By now it was getting dark outside. Wearily she texted Monroe, _Just checked. He’s still working._

Back at the Spice Shop Monroe was pacing erratically, the strain of waiting and being unable to do anything taking its toll. His worry for Rosalee’s safety, and Nick’s, was reaching fever pitch. He rubbed his face with both hands, stretched his arms out behind him and then straight out from his sides as he ranged through the shop’s side room like a caged wild animal. His expression was haunted and distressed.

It was getting on Ian’s already frayed nerves. Returning to sit at the worktable with a glass of water, he had to ask, “Are you always this _animated_?”

Monroe stopped, arms outstretched. “Well – _you_ made me miss my yoga, so, I’m…” He resumed his agitated pacing.

“You care about Rosalee.”

Monroe turned to face him. “I _do_. I care about _all_ of my friends, even the ones you don’t like!” He stood on the opposite side of the worktable glaring down at Ian, who averted his eyes.

“I don’t dislike him, he’s just…a Grimm.”

“Well, we’re all equals.” Monroe spread his arms out for emphasis. “Isn’t that what you’re fighting for?” He was interrupted by his phone and answered it hastily.  “Yeah…” As he listened, his brow furrowed. “What? Hang on, hang, on….”

He turned to Ian. “Have you ever heard of a _Friedenreden_?”

Hearing that word, Ian stood up. “ _Who_ is that?”

“Nick.”

“Put him on speaker.”

Monroe took his phone over next to Ian and told Nick, “Yeah, you’re on speaker with me and Ian.”

“Who asked you about a Friedenreden?” Ian asked.

Calling from the trailer, Nick said, “Waltz called me.”

“Does he know you found me?”

“No, I don’t think so. He wants me to meet him at ten p.m. He asked me if I knew what a Friedenreden was. I said I did, but I don’t.”

“It’s a truce,” Ian explained. “A white flag meeting. You both come unarmed and you both leave of your own accord.”

Monroe did not like the sound of this. Shaking his head rapidly he told Nick, “ _Dude_ , you can’t be thinking of meeting this guy _unarmed_!”

“He _will_ honor it,” Ian said. “They have a great belief in the sanctity of rules. Nick – one more thing. Once the truce is over, the _minute_ you walk away – anything goes, so…watch your back.”

When the call ended, Ian looked at Monroe. “Waltz is getting closer. This place isn’t safe anymore.”

With a long-suffering sigh, Monroe realized even his own home, his sanctuary was going to be violated with this mess. He could think of nowhere else to take their wounded and wanted Laufer leader. He texted Rosalee.

 

Well past ten p.m. she was still waiting at Reginald’s Camera. Her nerves were on edge with all the waiting and wondering, and with her growing suspicions about Freddy’s document counterfeiter. _Why was this taking so long?_

But finally, at long, long last, Reginald emerged from his back rooms and called to her, “Miss – your passport.”

She turned quickly away from the camera displays that she’d more than memorized by now and hurried over to him. He handed her the United States passport for Lester Cullum; it was excellent work, every detail correct.

She sighed with relief and nodded. “Thank you _so much_. What do I owe you?”

“Nothing.” He slid the passport into a thin brown paper bag and gave it to her. As she took it, he said, “I’m sorry.”

Perplexed, she asked, “For what?”

“Uh…your brother. He was a… _good_ friend.”

“Thank you.” Deeply relieved and desperately eager to escape the camera shop at last, she walked out and turned left down the dark sidewalk, heading for the Spice Shop.

She would later learn that she was the last person to see Reginald alive…except of course for Edgar Waltz.

This late the streets were almost deserted and Rosalee picked up her pace, feeling exposed and vulnerable. Most of the businesses were closed at this hour, and there was a block-long building renovation project ahead with scaffolding that extended over the sidewalk, all of its windows dark and empty.

The streets and sidewalks were wet from the intermittent rain that also discouraged people from being out and around. Only the occasional small restaurant or bar in the area was lit up and still serving customers.

Her Fuchsbau instincts were humming, every sense seeking warnings of any impending threat. She looked around fearfully as she walked even faster, every shadow seeming malignant and dangerous. But there was no one ahead or around her, and each time she glanced back over her shoulder, feeling like someone was stalking her, there was no one to be seen.

She turned left at the corner just beyond the scaffolding and strode determinedly toward the relative sanctuary of her shop.

Rosalee could scarcely believe it when she made it into the Spice Shop and closed the door behind her. Monroe and Ian were gone, of course, the fugitive now in hiding with her poor put-upon friend, so she was alone in the shop for now. Wasting no time, she went to the wall shelves filled with labeled jars and pushed the Keemum Panda #1 and Maoras Curry Powder out of the way to reach the small, antique wall safe hidden there. She unlocked it, took out the packet of large denomination American cash she’d found with Freddy’s fake passports and tucked the money into the same bag as Ian’s/Lester’s new one.

Focused on this surreptitious task, her back to the main shop, she was startled to hear someone coming in the shop’s front door. _Didn’t I lock that? I’m sure I did_ …

She whirled quickly to see a well-dressed middle-aged man entering. He asked in a friendly tone, “Oh, hi – are you open?”

“I’m sorry, we’re closed,” she said, covering her nerves with her pleasant business demeanor. “Why don’t you come back tomorrow? We open at nine.”

“Oh, please, just a minute,” he said. “I was told I could get some help here.”

Wanting only to finish her secret task, she hesitated; probably easier to just help him and send him on his way that get into a discussion about it. “Give me a minute. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much.”

Her back to the tardy customer, she went on with her task, only to find a note from Reginald tucked in the passport envelope. With horror she read, _I’m sorry. I had no choice. He is an agent of the Verrat_.

As she read those few words, she heard the man walking toward her. She tried to slide her phone out of her purse to call for help but felt him tapping her shoulder with something metallic – the silencer on a pistol.

Trapped, frightened, she _woged_ as she whirled on him, to face the _woged_ Verrat Hundjäger pointing the gun at her.

“ _Where_ is he?” Waltz demanded.

They both un _woged_ ; he reached for the passport and opened it to the photo page.

“It’s a good likeness, don’t you think? Look, I prefer not to hurt you, so go ahead; call him.” He pocketed the hard-won passport. “We’ll see whose life is more important to him.” He began wandering through the shop looking at the various wares, sniffing the soaps, amusing himself while he waited for the next act of his cruel play to begin.

Rosalee knew what she had to do.

Summoning all her courage and control, holding herself stiffly, she took out her phone and called Monroe.

His voice filled with relief, he said, “Hey, did you make it back from….”

“He’s here! Get Ian to safety!” she said quickly, knowing Waltz wouldn’t let her say more.

He turned on her with his gun, seemingly not at all surprised. “Have you said all you wanted to?” He held out his hand for her phone. “Put me on?” Taking the phone, he said into it, “Ian?”

From where she stood, Rosalee could hear Monroe’s enraged and desperate voice. _“I swear_ , if you touch a _hair_ on her head – !”

In his mild, coldly polite tone Waltz told him, “I don’t know who you are but let me keep it simple for you.   If you do not deliver Ian Harmon to me in fifteen minutes, I will _kill_ your girlfriend.”

It was the worst fifteen minutes of her life. Instead of protecting Ian and Monroe, now she was the bait that would draw them here to their deaths…and she had no doubt Waltz would kill her, too. Why leave a witness?

_If there’s any chance, any off-guard moment, any opportunity at all, what can I do to fight back?_

Confident, nearly gloating, Waltz strolled through the shop, waving his gun with its long silencer for emphasis as he spoke to fill the time before his prey walked through the door into his trap. “You may think I’m a monster…but what I am is necessary.”

She’d moved between the center display cabinet and the shop’s counter and he left her to stand there, her face a mask, while he continued his self-justifying speech and glanced at his watch occasionally.

“No society can survive without order. ‘Free thought’ is not free; there is no such thing as revolution. The oppressed always become the oppressors, and the cycle repeats, over and over.” He made a circling motion with the gun to illustrate while she stood silently staring at him. “The only way to win is to stay _out_ of the cycle.” He gave her a patronizing look. “You don’t understand a word that I’ve been saying.”

She shot back at him, insolent, “I’m sorry. I wasn’t listening.”

A moment later, she heard the unmistakable sound of Monroe’s VW pulling up outside and her heart quailed. _I never, ever in the world meant to pull him in to anything like this! And Ian…all this, and he’ll die anyway…._

There was a long delay after the Beetle’s engine went off; no one came to the shop door. _What’s going on out there?_

By now Waltz was actively pacing and checking his watch though humming to himself as the time ran out.

“Well, it seems like your Fuchsbau ‘hero’ is a coward.” He turned, raising the pistol and taking aim at her. Rosalee steeled herself to die.

But in that instant the shop bells jingled and Nick came through. Waltz turned the gun on him and Nick raised his hands, saying, “Waltz?”

“How did you know?”

“You want Ian?” Nick pointed outside. “I’ve got him.”

 _“What?”_ Rosalee cried.

Waltz had no time for her. He turned his gun on her and ordered, “Shut up! Get on the floor _. Get on the floor_!” He gestured down with the gun.

Glaring, she sank into a crouch next to the center display cabinet with its many shelves of herbs and spices reaching all the way down to the floor.

Dismissive of her, Waltz turned back to Nick. “If you’ve got him, where is he?”

Then Monroe came through the shop door, only to see Nick with his hands up and Waltz training his gun on them both. “Whoa!” He started putting his hands up, too.

“Who are you?” Waltz demanded.

“I’m the guy you _called_. I’ve got Ian.” Indicating Nick, Monroe asked, “Who’s _he?_ ”

Crouched exactly where she’d wanted to be, Rosalee took a small jar labeled “Ghost Pepper Powder” off the bottom shelf and unscrewed its lid while the men were all focused on each other. She watched them carefully while she hid it down on the floor by her side.

“What the _hell_ is going on here?” Waltz was saying.

Nick jabbed a thumb toward Monroe. “You going to believe a _Fuchsbau?_ ”

Monroe reacted angrily at that. “What’re you trying to say, _buddy?_ ”

“I’m saying you’re a liar!”

“All Fuchsbaus are liars!” Waltz said, oblivious to the real Fuchsbau lurking and waiting for her chance. He turned the gun on her. “ _Who_ did you call?”

She looked up at him, eyes defiant. “I didn’t _call_ a Fuchsbau.”

Waltz turned back to the men only to see Monroe smile his wolfish smile, head cocked to one side and nodding. “It’s true. I’m not a Fuchsbau.” He _woged_ , leaping toward Waltz with fangs bared and red eyes blazing, shearing talons outstretched for the attack.

Waltz barely had time to utter, “Blutbad…!” before Rosalee sprang up and threw the whole jar of ghost pepper powder directly into his face.

Waltz cried out in agony as the fiercely potent stuff burned his eyes and lungs, blinding and choking him long enough for Monroe to take him down without being shot. He forced Waltz’s gun arm to one side while he tore into the Hundjäger, and the two of them thrashed and fought on the shop floor while Rosalee dashed out of the way toward Nick, still holding her breath.

Staying on top of Waltz, Monroe smashed his gun arm until the pistol spun away across the floor out of reach. Behind them someone picked it up and trained it on Waltz.

It had happened so fast – it was over in seconds.

Rosalee rushed over to Monroe just as he got up and un _woged_ , each urgently asking the other, “ _Are you okay?”_

Waltz lay on the floor, body broken in Monroe’s attack, and looked up to see Nick and Ian training guns on him, Ian holding Waltz’s prized Luger in his left hand. Waltz tried to get up but could barely raise his upper body on his forearms.

“It’s over!” Nick said.

“No, it’s not.” Waltz lay back on the carpet but slowly lifted his right hand, palm open to display the Verrat tattoo.

Ian was rigid, cheek muscle twitching and eyes boring into the Verrat enforcer.

“Hey, put the gun down.” Nick said.

Ian was shaking his head, eyes fixed on Waltz. “I can’t. He’s right. Even if he’s dead, they’ll send others after me.”

“Ian – don’t!” But Nick was too late.

Standing over Waltz, Ian deliberately shot through the Verrat tattoo on his hand, then shot him directly in the heart while Monroe and Rosalee looked on in shock. Waltz’s body jerked; he spasmed and died.

“But at least now your friends’ll be safe,” Ian said. He handed the Luger over to Nick, who was staring at him wide-eyed. “Sometimes it’s hard to know what the right thing is.”

“Yeah – sometimes it’s _not_!” Nick said, eyeing the man who’d just executed the disabled Waltz, who was Nick’s suspect in two murders now.

Monroe was still staring down at Waltz’s body when Rosalee looked tragically over at Ian, who’d just committed a murder in front of them all and given himself up to the Portland detective…and Grimm.

Any hopes she’d harbored that Nick would understand and find a way to let Ian go were dashed in the next moment when Nick formally arrested Ian Harmon for the murder of Edgar Waltz, reading him his rights while he cuffed Ian’s wrists in front of him.

Ian was stone faced, knowing this would soon be the end for him; he’d never live to go to trial, let alone prison.

“Nick, you can’t do this. Don’t, please!” Rosalee pleaded, while Monroe stood beside her helplessly.

“I have no choice.” Nick didn’t like it, but his duty was clear. Hand on his prisoner’s back, he propelled Ian toward the shop’s door.

Rosalee followed close behind. “He did it for _us,_ for all of us! You _don’t understand_ what you’re dealing with.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Nick said. “I’m a cop. How am I supposed to justify letting him go after he shot the man right in front of me? Waltz was down, it was over.”

“It’s _never_ over with those dudes, Nick!” Monroe said. “This has been going on for centuries. You can’t just put them in jail and that’s the end of it. We’d all be so much dead meat before you’d even know it.”

Face set, Nick guided Ian out the shop’s door into the dark street and down the block toward his plain wrap police sedan.

Tearful and desperate, Rosalee followed, her hand on Nick’s back as she hurried to keep up. _This can’t be happening – after all we’ve been through together, everything we’ve done to keep Ian alive_ … And out of the Verrat’s and Royals’ hands; there was so much that so many had sacrificed for the Resistance.

“Nick….Nick! Please! If the Verrat know where Ian is….”

Stopping at his car, Nick turned to her. “You’ve got other things to worry about.”

Helpless to stop this, heart breaking for her former love and wretched with regret that she’d been part of his capture, Rosalee went to Ian in tears, shaking her head. She held him this last time, her hands on his neck and face, pressing her cheek to his. “I’m so sorry, Ian…”

He leaned down to accept her embrace, hands restrained by his cuffs. “Don’t be.”

Through her grief, she realized he was looking over her shoulder at something, someone while he said it. Only much later would she know that he was looking at Monroe, silently charging her devoted friend with her protection and care.

She held onto Ian until Nick opened the back door of his car, and Ian stoically got in for the ride to jail. She stood forlornly on the sidewalk watching as Nick closed the car door and walked around to the driver’s side.

Monroe tried to intercept him. “Nick! C’mon! You can’t do this! He killed Waltz to protect us!”

But the Grimm detective only turned long enough to tell him, “Listen to me. There’s only one thing that you need to do.”

“What?!?”

“Get rid of Waltz’s body.”

Rosalee and Monroe both stared him. No police, no CSU? After a moment Monroe nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”

He turned away from Nick and went to Rosalee, gently putting his arm around her and guiding her back toward the shop. She resisted a moment, taking her last look at Ian as Nick drove away.

Monroe waited until they were down the street, then drew her with him, saying softly, “Let’s go inside.”

 

When he ushered her in the door and locked it behind them, Rosalee looked around at what in these past few weeks had become her space, her domain. But now it felt violated, desecrated again, with the Verrat enforcer’s body lying there broken by Monroe’s attack and with blood seeping from the heart-shot into his chest. _First Freddy, and now Waltz killed in here…and Ian, all of us nearly killed here tonight_.

“Okay, now, this is weird,” Monroe said. He put a comforting arm around Rosalee when he saw her hugging herself tightly, shut down and struggling to hold back tears. “He wants us to get rid of the body. Like, _get rid of_ , get rid of? Or just relocate so he can send the forensics people somewhere else? Doesn’t he kind of need Waltz’s body to make his case against Ian?”

Rosalee struggled to focus, her mind filled with images of Nick processing Ian’s arrest and the wounded man locked in a cell, vulnerable to other arrestees and anyone who could gain access to the holding facility. Ian might well not survive the night.

She forced herself to grapple with the immediate problems facing them. “That is weird,” she admitted. “We’re supposed to cover up the crime scene?”

Monroe looked down at the body. “Bet there’s an exit wound and a bloody mess under there, close range.”

She nodded. “Might have even penetrated the floor if it didn’t hit a rib or something on the way out.”

“Well, that’ll be awkward. If their CSU people ever came looking around here, I mean, after we’ve….”

“No kidding.” It was bad enough when they went through the place top to bottom right after Freddy died.

“That must be it,” Monroe said. “He wants the body out of _here_ …he doesn’t want to implicate you, or me, and he doesn’t want his people crawling all over the shop. That wouldn’t be good, Waltz or no Waltz.”

She took a slow deep breath, mind working the problem. “So, we have to move him…where? And we can’t have him leaking while we move him, or shedding DNA all over the place more than he already has.” Since she didn’t have a car, she regretfully realized that meant they’d have to do this highly illegal thing in Monroe’s.

“Let me think about that. It’s not like I’ve got much experience dumping bodies; I mean, except for the kind where you eat the evidence.”

She shot him a startled glance but he was focused on Waltz; she decided he must be thinking of his hunting days before he went _wieder_. But…hunting what?

“You have a plastic tarp or drop cloth or, I don’t know, shower curtain or anything around here? Big enough to make a drip proof burrito of this guy?”

She caught herself smiling briefly at his bit of gallows humor. “There’s a plastic curtain in the bathroom; we have a safety shower in case of chemical spills. I’m not sure it’s big enough.”

“Let’s find out.” He crouched next to the body and studied it suspiciously. “Even with a heart shot, are we completely sure this dude’s dead? I mean, he’s elite Verrat, who knows what they’re capable of surviving….”

She was loath to touch Waltz but bent to feel for a pulse at his neck. “Nothing. And he’s starting to cool.”

“Okay, I’m thinking that’d be pretty tough to fake.”

“Short of something bizarre like a Dead Faint potion, yeah. And that’s definitely not what we’ve got here.” She glanced at her watch. “We’d better get this done in case Nick can’t delay sending the CSU team out to wherever Ian’s supposed to have killed Waltz. I’ll go get that curtain.”

“Okay, I’ll be thinking about where we might dump him. At least it’s way past most people’s bedtime.”

The old shower curtain was the one-piece circular kind, meant for a freestanding tub or shower instead of separate panels, so they were able to roll Waltz onto it and then wind him up like Cleopatra in her carpet. Both wearing latex gloves from Rosalee’s lab supplies, Monroe took the lower body while she marshaled the head and shoulders.

Waltz was dead weight, of course, when they worked to shift him over on his side and then face down on the plastic curtain they’d spread across the shop floor. His head lolled at first, bobbing as they turned him over and over, angling the body so that the plastic layers covered his feet and his head by the time they were done.

There was indeed a bloody exit wound through his back. The bullet was imbedded in the dense oriental rug where he’d fallen and the spot was soaked with blood, as were his layers of clothing. Lifting the carpet, Rosalee was relieved to see the dark wood floor below was unmarked and blood free.

“Let me get a baggie for the bullet so we can leave it where it belongs underneath him, wherever he ends up.” She went behind the shop counter for one of the small, sealable bags for sending a few tablets or capsules home with clients and a roll of clear packing tape from her shipping supplies.

“You’re good at this. You’ve done this before?” Monroe asked, reaching for the tape dispenser.

“No…just watched too much CSI and shows like that, I guess.”

He chuckled darkly at that, busy sealing the ends and side of the shower curtain and its contents with the packing tape. “Did you watch ‘Dexter’?”

She sighed at the guilty pleasure. “I…I’m afraid I did.”

“Me, too…most of it. I never got to the last season. Loved ‘Six Feet Under’, though, every episode.”

That made her laugh shortly, even under these awful circumstances. “Yeah…Freddy and I used to binge-watch that when I was visiting.”

Monroe grinned. “Yet another curious side of the late Frederick Calvert I never imagined.”

“Not only that, sometimes his friend Lionel would join us; not for ‘Dexter’ but he loved ‘Six Feet Under’. That was the best series finale _ever_. All three of us were huddled together on the couch crying and smiling at the same time.”

Monroe let himself imagine that, the two Fuchsbauer and their unwitting human friend. “Oh. So that would kind of limit the screen talk while you were watching…him being kehrseite and all.”

“A little, but it didn’t matter. He was good company. Still is.”

Monroe sat back on his heels, regarding their handiwork. “I think it’s good as we’re going to get. So do we clean up the blood and carpet first, or get him the hell out of here?”

She was already up and going for cleaning supplies. “I’ll do this while we decide where to take him. It’ll just take a few minutes. I do have a lot of experience cleaning up bloodstains; goes with the business.”

“Kids’ chores in the Wesen apothecary biz?”

“Well…sometimes, yes.” She got to work; fortunately the carpet was synthetic fiber and hadn’t absorbed Waltz’s blood much. “Oh, by the way, stay clear of that ghost pepper mess. I’m going to wear my hazmat gear to clean that up later, but it can wait; I can always say it was dropped by accident. Can’t open the shop again until it’s gone.”

Monroe was searching his phone for possible places to dump the body. He’d already given it some thought and knew a few likely places where they’d be unobserved…or only by denizens who wanted to avoid detection themselves, having good reason to be authority-averse.

“Why do you even have that stuff? I just got a faint dusting on the way down and it burned like hell!” He glanced over warily at the powdery splat on the floor nearby.

“Well, it’s used in _very_ small quantities by some very adventurous cooks.” She was flushing the last of the red from the rug fibers with a jug of water and blotting it with compostable paper towels. “Some people make DIY pepper spray and vermin deterrent; villagers in India where it comes from rub it on fences to repel elephants. But mostly we use it in topical ointments for deep muscle and joint pain, and it has anti-fungal properties.”

“Just sayin’, you might want to put that on a higher shelf, you know, out of reach of children?”

Finishing her carpet cleaning task, she smiled. “That’s a good point. I’m not sure why Freddy kept it down there…but tonight I was sure glad he did.”

“Yeah, thank God you could get to it.” Then he admitted, feeling the belated shock, “I fully expected Waltz to shoot me while I was pouncing. I just hoped I’d live long enough to get him, too.”

Her expression was very serious, remembering that crucial moment when she knew Monroe was going to attack, risking his life to save her, all of them. “That’s what I was afraid of, or that you’d get enough pepper to disable you, too. But then Nick would take advantage and shoot Waltz while he was down, I was sure of that.”

She looked at her fearsome friend with deep gratitude and relief. “It wasn’t all that long that I was crouched on the floor but it seemed to stretch on forever, waiting for something terrible to happen. Still, it gave me time to sneak the pepper off the shelf and hide it.”

Monroe smiled at her with admiration. “So when the chips are down, a sneaky Fuchsbau with a brick or jar of ghost pepper’ll do the job. I owe you some more flowers.”

“Monroe….” Her eyes were wide with regret. “I’m so, so sorry I dragged you into all of this. I knew helping Ian with the bullet wound was risky but I never imagined all of this would happen. I really thought we could just patch him up and send him secretly away, and we’d be safe.”

Monroe nodded. “Thanks. I didn’t know what I was getting into when I came over this morning, but if I had…I still would have come. Just so you know.”

She bit her lips, looking up at him gratefully, and nodded.

“That said, let’s try not to make a habit of this kind of thing, okay?” His eyes were smiling though he was pulling a long, serious face.

She laughed softly. “Okay…but try telling that to Nick.”

“Believe me – I’ve tried.”

But thinking of Nick, her smile faded fast. “I still can’t believe he arrested Ian. There had to be another way.”

Monroe sighed hard, shaking his head. “I know. Me, too. He’s played fast and loose before to keep deserving if not necessarily innocent people out of trouble. The Reapers he understands, well enough. I just don’t think he gets the magnitude of the whole Laufer versus Royals thing. But with this spilling over into Portland, he needs to get educated fast.”

“It sounded like he didn’t even know about the Royals, or _any_ of that.” She’d been shocked when Ian had to explain that major part of Wesen history to Nick, especially the Grimms’ role in it…on the wrong side.

“Yeah, well, if I know Nick he’ll be giving himself a crash course in it after this…but I’m going to need to make sure his sources are, you know, valid from _our_ point of view.”

“He has…books?”

“From his aunt.” Monroe was not going to mention the trailer.

“Kessler. Of course, I forgot. No wonder.”

“Yeah, he’s not, well, fully cognizant of what that name means to most of us.”

“I should have…I really thought we could trust him.” Her grief and shock were melding into anger. “We shouldn’t have called him for this.”

“No, wait, let’s not go there so fast. How’d Waltz figure out to come here, anyway, any idea?”

She closed her eyes at the terrible memory. “There was a note from Reginald in with the fake passport, warning me a Verrat agent knew what he was doing; he had no choice. But when I found it, Waltz was already here. It was too late.”

“Soooo…if Nick wasn’t involved, Ian and I would’ve still been here when you got back. And faced with an armed Verrat Hundjäger, we’d all be dead now.”

She sighed, shoulders slumping. “Okay, yeah. But I still can’t forgive him for arresting Ian; it’s a death sentence whether Nick understands that or not. And he wouldn’t listen.”

“I’m sorry.” With difficulty he said, “I could see that Ian means a lot to you…even if he is an ex.”

“Yeah. Not just because of that; because of what he is, what he does, being so important.” She closed her eyes. “He hurt me terribly when he left, but truthfully I was naïve to expect it could last. I was very young…it was kind of a romantic thing like Ilsa in ‘Casablanca’, I guess, being with someone heroic and important like that. But it’s not like he was ever going to settle down with me in Portland, or anywhere else for that matter. Still, he left me with a lot of…trust issues.”

Monroe was nodding when she looked up. “Got it.” Then he waved his phone. “I’ve got a couple of places in mind. See what you think.”

 

He pulled the yellow Bug into the alley by the shop’s back door and they managed to stuff Waltz’s body in the back seat, rolled up in the shower curtain and the oriental rug; Rosalee decided she didn’t want it in the shop as a reminder, and though the blood had washed out, she wasn’t sure if a dedicated CSU tech might still find traces.

“So, we need to lay him out like he got shot on the spot,” Monroe said as he drove through the dark streets toward a remote part of the southwest waterfront. “It’s near impossible to completely get rid of a body in an urban place like this, not without witnesses or surveillance or somebody noticing the ground’s been disturbed.”

“Yeah, not the ‘I’ve got twenty acres and a shovel’ kind of thing.” She was looking straight ahead when he glanced sideways at her remark.

“Like that. Or,” remembering the fate of the Klaustreich who’d abused and disfigured his high school girlfriend Molly, he added, “a hog pen, or anything like that.”

Rosalee smiled with dark amusement. “So, you watched ‘Deadwood’, too.”

“Yeah. That was pretty gross.” He grinned, finding their whole situation and this conversation intriguingly macabre now.

“But effective.”

“Everything but the clothes.” He spied the turnoff to an isolated area near the river and the underside of the Hawthorne Bridge.

Concealed by darkness, trees and shrubbery, they unrolled Waltz and arranged him just as he’d fallen on the shop floor, the bullet pressed against the hole in his back when they laid him out on the mulch of dead leaves and dirt not far from the roadway.

Looking down, Rosalee said, “They’re going to know he was moved. There’s no blood from the wound on the ground, for one thing.”

“Well, we’ll let Nick figure that out. Once we’re outta here, I’ll call him. Not the kind of thing to put in a text: ‘Here’s where we left your dead guy’. Don’t want them triangulating my phone here, either.”

“Thank you, ‘CSI’,” Rosalee said. “And a lot of other crime shows, too.”

“Yeah, teaching us all how to be more successful criminals.”

They drove back north and went down to the river’s edge near the St Johns Bridge to rinse the blood off the shower curtain as best they could and left it in a dumpster in a derelict area Monroe was familiar with, not far from the shabby Geiger Pest Control yard and trailer.

The rolled carpet was left sticking out of another dumpster close to the Fremont bridge and the railroad tracks, where they knew it would be liberated and put to good use by transients before daylight. Their latex gloves went into the very ‘fragrant’ bin behind a seafood restaurant along with its prep cooks’ discarded pairs.

Both starving by now after the long day and their protracted adrenaline rush wearing off, they went back to Rosalee’s place to make food and call Nick.

Monroe gave him careful directions to the body’s location, right down to the GPS coordinates he’d noted from his phone while they were there. “We left him in the same position he croaked in,” he said, with Nick on speaker so Rosalee could hear. “Bullet’s under the exit wound, but there won’t be much blood this long after.”

“Let me worry about that. We’re going to have an anonymous tip about finding the body and…there’ll be additional evidence on him when we go out to investigate.”

“Got you.” Monroe and Rosalee exchanged glances over his phone.

She couldn’t help asking, “What about Ian?”

There was a silence before Nick said curtly, “No discussion about that. I did what I had to do.”

Rosalee’s face darkened and she pressed her lips together tightly. “I’ll get him a good lawyer.”

“Better consult with him about that first.”

“I will, first thing in the morning. Count on it.” _If Ian’s still alive…and nobody’d ‘disappeared’ him._

“You two lay low, go about your normal business. Oh – he killed the camera shop owner, too, your passport guy. Same antique pistol, same unique ammo. Collateral damage…I’m sorry.”

Rosalee took a deep breath and sighed it out, sick with guilt over involving Reginald. “I was afraid of that. Reginald left me a warning note in with the passport but I saw it too late. Waltz was already in my shop.”

“Oddly there weren’t any security cameras in the camera shop, so unless some other customers came in and saw you while you waited, you’re probably okay. I…don’t recommend that you follow in your family’s footsteps with this particular kind of work.”

Stiffly she told him, “I never intended to. Ian was…is…special.”

“Okay, gotta go. Things to do by morning.” Nick clicked off.

Rosalee stared down at the phone with angry distaste. “I am going down there at daylight to find out where they’re holding Ian. They have to tell me, right? Allow him his one phone call and all that?”

“Supposedly, but…yeah, I think so. I’ve never been arrested and certainly not for murder, so can’t say for certain.” Though it had come close when Nick attacked him in his own front doorway, convinced that he was Robin Howell’s kidnapper.

“I have…just for minor stuff. You never got in that kind of trouble…before?”

“Let’s say I was lucky they never caught me back before I went straight.” After she’d witnessed his Blutbad attack, he was almost afraid to admit that to his distressed friend.

“Not even as a rowdy teenager?” She had to smile a little at the thought of an adolescent Monroe.

“Nope.” Relieved to see her smile, he smiled back flashing his very human, even white teeth. “You keep that kind of thing way out in the woods. Speaking of which, I’m really hungry and that’s not a good thing for me.”

“I’m famished. I never even got breakfast yesterday. Also speaking of which, it’s late enough…or early enough – do you want breakfast or something more like dinner?”

“Breakfast is good, probably easier to manage vegetarian. Eggs and cheese are okay, I’m not being super strict right now.”

“All that, I’ve got.” She gave him a half smile. “Hold the bacon and sausage, though.”

“Unless you’ve got the fake, meatless kind.” He smiled back. “You go ahead, won’t bother me.”

“I’ll make a scramble and maybe French toast. And coffee, definitely coffee. I’m not going to bed before I go start tracking down Ian.”

“Lead the way, I’m handy in a kitchen. Oh, and don’t forget the ghost pepper cleanup on your to-do list. I’m not wanting to volunteer for that.”

It was the first time they cooked together, and ate breakfast together as the sun rose.

 

No one at the Portland Police Bureau’s Central Precinct had any record of an Ian Harmon being arrested in the past twenty-four hours, there or at the other Portland precincts; nor a Lester Cullum. No one who fit Ian’s description, either.

Rosalee even tried asking for Sergeant Wu personally; he’d been kind and helpful to her when they were investigating Freddy’s murder, and he sort of knew her from the Spice Shop where he’d collapsed, and at his apartment the night she’d cured him of his zaubertrank pica affliction – if he remembered anything clearly about either event. She sincerely hoped he didn’t.

“Miss Rosalee Calvert,” Wu said jauntily when he came down to see her at the lobby desk. “Spice and tea proprietor _extraordinaire_. What can I do for you?”

“I’m looking for an acquaintance who’s been arrested. No one’s heard from him and I thought he’d call me once he was booked in.”

“You asked these fine gentlemen at the front desk?”

Rosalee nodded toward them and smiled. “They’ve tried to help but can’t find him.”

“No one of his description in the system, Sarge,” a young officer said.

“Well, maybe they dropped the charges and set him loose. Sometimes happens. Do you know who the arresting officer is?”

“No, a mutual friend told me he was in town but got picked up by the police for something, and no one knows what happened after that.” The Fuchsbau gift for lying came too easily.

“Well, we’ll check a little more.” He was looking at her a little oddly, maybe remembering some of the strange contexts where he’d seen her. “Come on up, I need to be at my desk waiting for some other things.”

Once again she found herself entering the Robbery-Homicide bullpen. A quick glance told her Nick and Hank weren’t at their desks; she hoped they’d be in the field until she was out of there.

“What’s his name?” Wu was leaning over his desktop, hands braced near the keyboard.

“Ian Harmon. About six feet, dark hair, blue eyes…oh, ah, British accent, if that helps.”

Wu tapped his keyboard for a few moments and shook his head. “Nada.”

“Is there a Lester Cullum?”

Wu’s eyes shifted to hers. “Same guy?”

“I’m told he’s used that name before, yeah.” She could see Wu taking her measure again, not so sure she was just an innocent party looking for a missing friend.

Wu ran the name and description again, and shook his head. “Got nothing. Nowhere in our system, not even looking back another day or so. You’re sure it was yesterday?”

“That’s what they said. Could he have been transferred somewhere else? Some other agency?”

“We’d have a record. Sorry.” He looked like he wanted to ask her something else, but then thought better of it.

She was glad he didn’t. “Well, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.” She gave him a warm smile, and meant it.

He smiled back. “I’ll have the intern take you back downstairs.”

“Thanks.”

And then she was out on the sidewalk in the bright morning overcast, even more worried than before and with no idea how else to search for Ian.

 

Back at the shop, swathed in a dust mask, goggles, gloves and protective lab smock, she carefully cleaned up the spill of ghost pepper powder and wiped down the floor with the same kind of compostable paper towels she’d used for Waltz’s blood. Those were somewhere in the Columbia River by now, dissolved into tiny particles of mush by the Willamette’s waters and turbulence.

It gave her too much time to think, and she was thinking angry thoughts about Nick.

 _I don’t want to see him or hear from him unless he’s telling me what happened to Ian. And it better not be bad news._ The fearful thought she’d been avoiding intruded again. _I hope to God he didn’t go all Grimm on him_ ….

She shook her head sharply to banish that thought. _I can’t really believe Nick would just kill him. Edgar Waltz, yes – but even after everything Waltz did Nick was just going to arrest him. But if he did turn Ian over to someone else…._

For the thousandth time she wished Freddy were still here to ask; he’d have contacts and know how to search. But she hadn’t found anything in Freddy’s effects that was helpful. Some things you just didn’t write down.

_Well – Nick had better not call or come around here looking for favors, especially dangerous ones. I am sooo not happy with him about this! Ian, I’m sorry…I’ll keep trying to think of something._

Changing clothes and washing up after her hazardous cleanup, she made a mental note that she needed a new shower curtain and another rug for that bare spot on the shop floor. Feeling her lack of sleep, already bone-weary, she went to flip the sign to “open” and unlock the door. For once she hoped it would be a very slow day.

On the counter, her phone rang. _Thank God for caller ID_. Not surprisingly it was Monroe.

“Any news? Any luck?”

“Nothing. I even talked to Sergeant Wu. No one resembling him in their system, no arrestee transfer, nothing.” The anger and frustration welled up in her again.

“Did Wu have any ideas? Nick says he’s a sharp guy; we haven’t exactly seen him at his best.”

“Not really. He looked like he wanted to ask me something but didn’t – luckily.” She turned to watch the shop door in case anyone came in and could overhear their conversation. “He did suggest that maybe the charges were dropped and my ‘friend’ was released.”

“Well…I don’t know. Maybe that’s what happened. Or, maybe somehow Ian got away, though that doesn’t seem too likely.”

“Cuffed, injured and prisoner of a well-armed Grimm in a police vehicle…I don’t think so. Monroe….”

“What?”

“You don’t think…could he have…done the ancestral thing, the Kessler thing?”

“No! I can’t imagine – no, not Nick. Kill Ian, when he was determined to take Waltz in alive? No. That...that doesn’t make sense.”

“Then why won’t he tell us what happened? Why did he basically say ‘end of discussion’ and shut me out?”

“Protecting Ian, maybe? Us, himself? I mean, he did tell us to mess with the evidence, big time, and then he was going to mess with it even more – I’m sure you caught that. We’ll all be in some serious shit if that ever comes out.” Monroe sighed. “I’ve been giving this a whole lot of thought, can’t help it. Maybe he’s waiting for all this to blow over; the whole Waltz thing’s got to be real hot right now, lots of major attention on it. Uh…was Nick there when you talked to Sergeant Wu? Did you go upstairs?”

“He and Hank weren’t at their desks.”

“Well, given the timing I’d bet that ‘anonymous call’ has them out working the crime scene by now. Give him a chance, Rosalee. And if either of us comes up with an idea, we’ll pursue that, too. Short of contacting the kind of people whose attention we really don’t want.”

She relented. “I hope you’re right. I just feel like I should be doing more to help him, find him.”

“Well, just saying…as a rule, Ian’s not too keen on being found. Right? So maybe looking for him real obviously isn’t the best thing, whether he’s inside or out. Secret protective custody maybe; we don’t know.”

“Thanks, Monroe. I hope someday soon I’ll owe Nick a big apology. But that day’s certainly not now. He better not be calling here for any favors any time soon.”

“Loud and clear. When I hear from him, I’ll tell him.”

 

The silence over the next several weeks was deafening.

No calls or visits from Nick, not as a Grimm or as Detective Burkhardt. Not even any queries sent through Monroe, though she knew Monroe was in frequent contact with Nick as always.

She’d stopped annoying the Police Bureau with questions about a prisoner they insisted they’d never had.

She even considered breaking the strained silence with her mother to ask if Gloria had any ideas; her mom had always liked and admired Ian, and tried to help her young daughter understand when Ian left Rosalee to pursue his mission back in Europe. But remembering those counterfeit passports for her mother and both Calvert daughters, she decided not to put her mom and sister at further risk by contacting Gloria about this.

About a week later, Monroe stopped by to see her and fill a prescription from his Wesen doctor. “I’m in kind of an awkward situation. I mean, it’s nice but…let’s say, fraught.”

“What do you mean?” She was studying Martin Kramer’s handwritten prescription; Wesen doctors’ handwriting tended to be no better than their human counterparts’.

“Nick’s live-in girlfriend Juliette invited me to dinner at their house.”

Rosalee looked up. “And that’s ‘fraught’?”

“Well, it’s the first time I’ll be seeing her socially, and she doesn’t know about us, Nick, any of this. Kind of like Lionel only she’s in the thick of it living with a Grimm. And it’s kind of tricky to talk about how Nick and I know each other.”

She widened her eyes. “Oh. Yeah, I could see that. How does she even know about you being Nick’s friend?”

“Well…interesting story but the short version is, I helped Nick rescue her from a Dämonfeuer who’d kidnapped her awhile back to get him to do something.”

“Okay, wait – she was kidnapped and then rescued from a Dämonfeuer, but she doesn’t know about Wesen or Grimms? How does that work?”

“Well, granted it was bizarre but she didn’t see anybody _woged_. Anyway, that’s how she first met me and I guess she’s been curious…and grateful, ever since. And now she’s invited me to dinner, wouldn’t let Nick get out of it, and we’re trying to figure out what we can safely talk about. It’s kind of a minefield.”

“Wow. I can see that, too.” She went back to puzzling out the prescription, figuring out the purposes of its ingredients and their synergies.

“She’s smart and very perceptive; Nick has to be real careful not to reveal his Grimm business as much as that’s possible. And she’s a vet.”

“She’s ex-military?”

“No, the other kind; Doctor Juliette Silverton. You’ve got to have a major brain for that. So we need to not screw this up.” Monroe smiled. “And besides, it’s nice of her to invite me. I don’t get a lot of dinner invitations; it’s just not part of my world. Except for you, of course, but that’s just us being friends and in cahoots about a lot of odd stuff.”

“Well, I wish you luck.” She waved the prescription. “I have all the stuff for this; it’ll take me about fifteen minutes to put it together. It’s pretty strong – have you used it before?”

“Yeah, for years now. I just…wanted to start bringing it to you instead of mail order from another compounding pharmacy.” It was also his way of reassuring her that his violent attack on Edgar Waltz was completely under his control.

“Well, you’re definitely getting the ‘friends and family’ discount.” She smiled. “It’s certainly the least I can do after you’ve risked your life for me more than once.”

“Oh – so the discount’s only after two or more lifesavings? One’s not enough?” He grinned, relieved that she wasn’t disturbed by the powerful medication that helped him suppress his violent impulses.

“Once would do it, but more than once really seals the deal. And after I fill this, are you free for lunch? There’s a new Indian place over on Everett I want to try and their online menu has lots of vegetarian options.”

“Better and better. Let’s do that.”

 

Later he told her about the conversational entanglement he and Nick blundered into at that dinner in front of Juliette that he only escaped by insisting on getting her vegan salmon recipe _right now._ But he didn’t mention his Grimm-training forays out in the forest with Nick practicing with his array of odd and deadly weapons from Aunt Marie’s trailer. Rosalee visibly stiffened when Nick’s name was mentioned; her anger at him over Ian was unabated, and she was deeply troubled by her inability to find out what had happened to him.

Monroe did tell her about the two Reapers coming after Nick since she was already only too aware of their dedication to eliminating Grimms and anyone else who got in the way of that mission, another Old World Wesen problem visiting itself on Portland. He felt that she deserved a warning that this was going on.

The odd thought had occurred to Monroe that perhaps Nick had made contact with another Grimm by now, maybe in Europe, and handed Ian off to him or her; somehow he’d known where to send those severed Reaper heads. But he had a hard time believing his friend would keep a secret like that from him. He kept that speculation to himself.

“It’s never good when you get a call from a friend late at night asking you to bring a shovel.”

They were at her place sharing an extra large Mediterranean pizza and his current favorite craft beer before settling in to watch a movie. Rosalee nearly choked on her beer when he said that.

_“What?”_

“Yeah, he did them both in, by himself, before he called me. One was minus his head, you know, old school. The other he got in the neck with a doppelarmbrust bolt. Pretty impressive.”

“I’ll say.” Her lovely brown eyes were wide. “So, what did he need you for? Or just the shovel; I can figure out that part.”

“Yeah, this getting rid of bodies thing is getting to be too much of a habit.” He stabbed a forkful of Greek salad. “At least we were way out away from civilization and there were lots of good places to bury a couple of headless corpses.”

Rosalee swallowed hard; she was going to be lucky to survive this dinner with Monroe without needing a Heimlich maneuver. “Wait – only one lost his head, I thought?”

Monroe looked a little sheepish but his eyes gleamed at the memory anyway. “Yeah, well, I kind of helped with that. He wanted to send the Reaper bigwigs a message and I said two heads were better than one.”

Her eyes went even wider. “He didn’t…”

“I did. Those scythes are really sharp. And effective. It was pretty cool, actually.”

“ _You_ lopped off a dead Reaper’s head with his own scythe.”

“Well…we wanted to send them a boxed set, so….”

“Monroe!”

“He knew that I know a lot about shipping international packages, so we put them in with some freezer packs and somehow he figured out where to send them in Mannheim. He got online confirmation of delivery from the shipping service but so far, no reply to his note in the gift box.”

“His note?”

“ ‘Next time send your best’. Because he knows there’ll be a next time, and a next and a next ‘cause they’ll keep trying.”

She groaned. “Oh, my god.”

“Look, I know you’re not best pleased with Nick right now and I don’t blame you. Maybe someday he’ll tell us what happened with Ian; I just can’t believe he killed him,” Monroe said. “But he’s my friend and he really is trying to do the right thing for everybody, us and the kehrseiten. And just being what he is, he’s a target for so many dangerous people. I just thought you’d better know.”

“Well, staying out of his way seems like the best idea. And that’s what I’m doing.”

“But you don’t mind if I talk about him sometimes? ‘Cause I don’t have much else to talk about except the clock business and that makes anybody but another horologist glaze over pretty fast.”

He was glad when she had to smile, admitting that.

“Okay…just not too much Nick, please. And we do have all kinds of other things to talk about. Us, for example.”

Monroe’s heart skipped a beat, surprising him. “Us?”

“Our life histories, our families, where we came from in the Old World...” She shrugged. “All kinds of things.”

“Well, sure, but some of that’s kind of fraught for me and…I think, for you, too.”

“I don’t want to talk about the bad times. Just the good things…growing up, places we’ve been, the kinds of things friends share with each other. Including things I can’t talk about with Lionel.”

Monroe nodded, smiling. “Yeah, okay. I’m all for that.”

“And that brings me to the movie choice tonight. Have you ever seen ‘The Secret of Roan Inish’?”

“Noooo…sounds Irish?”

“Good call. And so am I, on my mother’s side. I spent some long vacations with my cousins there in rural Ireland when I was growing up. Talk about all kinds of legends and stories, they have so many that are really about Irish Wesen but of course that’s not what the locals think. This movie’s kind of about that and it’s one of those good, healing character journeys, if you’re up for that. And the Irish seacoast scenery is amazing.”

“I’m mostly German on both sides so I’m not all that up on Irish lore, other than leprechauns and fairies and that sort of nonsense.”

“Don’t be so sure about that.” She gave him a mysterious look. “But that’s not what this film’s about.”

“Okay, I’m in. Something different and not too violent and depressing, that fills the bill. Oh, I brought popcorn….”

She laughed. “Of course you did.”

They spent the rest of the evening relaxing in each other’s company and watching the lyrical movie about a troubled human family whose bloodline turns out to include selkies, seals that can shed their skins to become human, even raise families with humans, but must reclaim their seal coats to revert to their natural form.

“So the selkies are really some kind of marine Wesen?” Monroe asked when they came to the part of the movie where according to family legend, an ancestor married one of the Dark Ones, a selkie woman.

“They are; I’ve actually met some, we went swimming with them off the Irish west coast one summer. They’re the Rón Duine; my cousins’ families have known them for generations, from back when they were sailors and fisherfolk in Donegal.”

“Wow.” He looked at her quizzically. “Fuchsbauer and seal folk as friends?”

“We have a lot in common, including a reputation as tricksters.” She gave him her vixen smile. “Not undeserved, I might add.”

“Yeah, I was going to say….”

“Beat you to it.”

They settled in to enjoy the rest of the strangely transformative movie, which was even more interesting viewing it from a Wesen perspective.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be continued in Chapter Six...what was Rosalee doing during the three episodes she did not appear in on the show? She may be avoiding Nick, but certainly not Monroe. And Monroe was in the thick of everything Nick was, so....


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We saw at the end of Cat & Mouse that Rosalee was deeply hurt and furious at Nick for arresting Ian. I’m presuming Nick’s refusing to talk about it for reasons of his own. So now she’s angry and afraid for Ian, not speaking to Nick voluntarily, and his Wesen questions are all going to Monroe – who’s between a rock and a hard place over his friends' alienation. But he doesn't hesitate to call Rosalee for advice and help...or lunch.
> 
> Imagining what went on with her through the three episodes she did not appear in at the end of Season One...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a wonderful online Portland-based resource for Grimm fanatics that identifies locations where they filmed each episode over the first four seasons, the Southwest Waterfront Blog; it also has some behind the scenes photos of location shoots. I guess the blogger lost track of Grimm after that, alas.
> 
> That's how (2 states away) I've identified a lot of places such as the Portland Center for Performing Arts, which of the city's many bridges show up in specific scenes, where Reginald's Camera shop was shot (really only a few blocks from the Spice Shop exterior so she could have walked there & back quickly), etc.
> 
> Good fun!

**Chapter Six**

Monroe didn’t consult with Rosalee when Nick needed his help defeating a greedy and merciless bat-like Murciélago, since they found the siren-like device they needed to counteract her deadly high-pitched shriek in Nick’s trailer.

But it was another story when his old friend and fellow _wieder_ traveler Larry McKenzie broke into his house in the wee hours of the morning desperately needing Monroe’s help.

Not only had Larry been shot in the leg just above his knee, he was mostly _woged_ and couldn’t seem to morph completely back one way or the other; the desperate Wildermann wasn’t able to speak coherently in this form, either. And not long after Monroe helped him limp over to lie down on the living room couch, Larry blacked out.

At a loss to figure out what was wrong with his friend, Monroe called Rosalee even though it was just after four a.m. Her voice was groggy when she answered her phone.

“Hey, I’m _really_ sorry to wake you up so early but I’ve got an urgent situation here. I’m okay,” he assured her quickly, “but a Wildermann friend of mine is passed out on my couch and he’s been shot in the leg. And believe me, that’s not the worst of his problems.”

Rosalee sat up in bed, awake now. “Can you get him to a doctor? Do you need my help?”

“More of a consult really.” He was looking at Larry’s weirdly distorted body laid out on the yellow couch. “Have you ever heard of a condition where someone gets stuck _woged_ and can’t shake it off?”

“It’s not the Umkippen, I hope?” Rosalee rubbed her eyes, trying to think. “Wait – you said he’s passed out and he’s still _woged_? That shouldn’t happen even if it is Umkippen.”

“Yeah, tell me about it, that’s what’s so weird. He was trying to tell me something but he could hardly talk and he wasn’t making any sense. And then he blacked out – but he didn’t change back.”

“Did he pass out from blood loss, maybe? How bad is the wound?”

“I haven’t been able to get a close look yet but it’s not bleeding much, at least not now. It’s fresh, it must have happened tonight. But I’m pretty sure that’s not the root of his problem; it’s whatever’s causing his stuck _woge_.”

Rosalee was up now, clicking on her bedside lamp and moving toward Freddy’s closet where she still had a number of his Wesen medical books. “I’ll see what I can find out but I’ve never heard of a stuck _woge_ condition before.” She paused. “Are we talking full Stage 2 _woge_ where anyone could see him?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Her breath hissed between her teeth. “Oh, that’s bad on so many levels. If I can’t find anything here I’ll go into the shop and check the books there. See if you can do anything with the gunshot wound; mostly elevate his leg above the heart and stop the bleeding. If we have to, I can take it from there.”

“Okay. Okay…thanks.”

She pulled out the heavy texts that seemed most likely to have this kind of information and hauled them off to the dining room table where she’d have better light. Still in her sleep clothes, she put on a kettle for tea and started searching through the books.

More than an hour later she was still searching unsuccessfully and had decided she’d have to get dressed and get over to the shop for this one. Tea mug in hand, she went to turn on the TV for a weather report so she’d know how to dress for the day ahead and whether to bother with an umbrella.

Instead what she saw was a special news report about a supposed Bigfoot attack that had the local media in a total frenzy.

Two members of a team of self-described Sasquatch hunters armed with low-light cameras and video equipment had been brutally killed overnight in the forest near Bluff Creek, and the surviving hospitalized woman was raving to the medical staff and anyone else who’d listen warning them to stay out of the woods because a murderous Bigfoot was out there.

The reporters from every station and online media service couldn’t get enough of it.

She strode over quickly to snag her phone off the dining room table and called Monroe. “Is he still out, and stuck?”

“Yeah, no change,” Monroe’s worried voice came through the phone. “You got something?”

“Nothing good. You’d better turn on the news; I’m seeing this on channel 8 but I’m sure it’s all over the place. Bigfoot attack nearby, and two men were killed.”

“Oh, lord,” Monroe groaned, looking at his unconscious friend with his huge hairy feet propped up on the end of the couch. “Is that how he got shot?”

“They’re not saying anything about that, just that these three Sasquatch hunters were out in the forest with their video gear and…encountered something a lot more than they bargained for. There’s a survivor and she’s ranting endlessly to the media about Bigfoot being on the loose out there.”

He heaved a distressed sigh. “Oh, better and better. A witness who saw a Wildermann _woged_ and they had video so maybe got pictures? This is so very not good!”

“A Wildermann who supposedly killed _two people_. Could it be your friend?”

“No…I mean, I hope not. Larry’s had some control issues in the past; he’s in the same _wieder_ program I am. He’s been doing so well for years now, a really chill guy. But now something’s very wrong with him. I can’t be sure he didn’t do something violent, but when he came here he was just looking for help. I don’t have any idea what’s happened to him.”

He walked over to the flat screen in its corner of the living room and clicked it on, flipping to the NBC channel Rosalee was watching. The full import of the media circus struck him with force. “Oh, my God, this is bad. This is so bad. What do I do?”

“Well, I’m getting dressed and running to the shop. Maybe there’s something there. At least Larry made it to your place and he’s not where anyone else can see him.” She stopped in the bedroom at her next scary thought. “Monroe – if he wakes up and he’s out of control, can you handle him?”

Monroe eyed the tall, powerful Wildermann lying there unconscious. “I sure hope so. Won’t be much left of my living room if it comes to that. I mean, he’s wounded, but if he goes all wild-man on me, that’s not going to make things better.”

Rosalee closed her eyes. “I hate to say this, but….”

“Yeah, I’m already there. If it _was_ Larry, not only is this a police matter, it’s probably a Grimm matter too. I’m going to call Nick.”

Phone in one hand, Rosalee was getting dressed with the other. “I’ll be at the shop in about thirty minutes, less if I can catch the bus on my way. Keep me posted.”

 

She grabbed coffee and an egg and sausage sandwich at the Mountain View Diner next door to the Spice Shop, grateful they’d started opening early for the heading-to-work breakfast crowd. Then she hurried into the shop to start searching the medical books there, leaving the “closed” sign turned out to the street. She didn’t officially open until ten but the shop’s hours were long known to be highly irregular, and she didn’t want any early bird customers distracting her from her research.

Still she found nothing about Wesen getting stuck in a _woge_ ; no case histories, no treatments. She tried calling Monroe for an update but he wasn’t answering. _Probably busy with Nick sorting out the situation_ , she thought. _Non-violently, I hope!_

In the side room she turned on a small television Freddy had in the back area where he’d sat for lunch. The station was replaying an earlier interview with Nick’s Captain about the Bigfoot scare; Renard was surrounded by a dense pack of reporters shoving microphones and cameras in his face.

“Can you tell us who or what killed the two men up at Bluff Creek?”

“Was it an animal attack?”

“Do you have any suspects?”

Renard, unflappable as always, told them, “We are conducting an investigation and we have a number of leads we are following as we speak. As soon as we have any concrete information, you’ll be the first to know. Thank you.”

At that he turned away from the babble of questions that followed him.

_That sounds like a blow off, the usual evasive statement when something major is going on and they don’t really have anything yet_ , she thought. Then the discomforting follow-on thoughts were, _But if they really do have serious leads they were investigating, it could possibly lead them to Monroe’s house._

And if the _woged_ Wildermann were still there, that could be world-shattering.

She tried calling Monroe again; still no answer. She left him an urgent voice mail asking him to please call her as soon as possible and let her know what was happening.

His phone buzzed unnoticed on his kitchen counter while Nick stood watching over the unconscious Wildermann and Monroe lead the police search dogs on a wild Blutbad chase through the forest just downhill from his house, wearing Larry’s distinctive red plaid shirt to throw them off the real scent trail to 418 Ravensview Drive.

And not long after that, poor Larry was dead in Monroe’s kitchen from whatever it was that caused his uncontrolled and unretractable _woge_. Then Monroe had yet another body to relocate with his friend the Grimm.

 

It was a very emotional Monroe who called Rosalee much later in the day after Nick had gone to follow the possible lead of Larry’s Wildermann therapist Konstantin Brinkerhoff.

“Larry’s dead,” he said, grief heavy in his voice when she answered. “He died right here in my kitchen after he dug some kind of device out of his neck. He was frantic to get it out. And now there’s a bloody smear down my wall where he collapsed in front of me and Nick.”

Rosalee ached with sympathy when Monroe choked back tears after that part. She gently asked, “Device?”

“Yeah, it’s on a thin cord, it was imbedded in the back of his neck like some kind of surgical implant.” His voice was hoarse with emotion. “We left it in Larry’s hand where we laid him out in the forest for Nick’s forensic people to find.”

“Ohhh, Monroe, I’m so sorry. Then I take it he wasn’t _woged_ any more?”

“No…but he didn’t change back until he died. We were standing right there, saw the whole thing. Couldn’t do anything to help him.” His voice hardened. “Soon as I clean up this mess, I’m going to call someone who might have some idea what’s going on, out at Helvetia Tavern.”

“All the way out there?” The well-known roadhouse was in a still rural part of Hillsboro, west of Portland off Highway 26.

“That’s where our informal _wieder_ support group meets; the guy who runs the place sponsors us there.   I haven’t been there for a while, haven’t feel the need, but I’m hoping someone knows what was going on with Larry.”

“Do you want me to go with you?” she offered.

“No, it’s, um, kind of a members-only deal. No one’s going to be real willing to talk about this stuff around a stranger, no offense.”

“I truly understand, believe me. Just let me know if there’s anything I can do from here.”

Monroe thought it was worth a try. “You ever heard of a Doctor Konstantin Brinkerhoff?”

“I think so…I seem to remember my boss in Seattle mentioning the name. He’s some kind of psychoanalyst type focused on identity issues, right? Including _our_ kinds of issues?”

“That’s the guy. Larry’d been seeing him for a while, last I heard. Nick’s gone to follow up on that.”

“You told Nick about Brinkerhoff? So he knows….”

“Brinkerhoff’s a Wildermann, too, yeah.”

“Wow. Okay.” This news bothered her and she shared the rest of what she remembered with Monroe. “Karel Sicinski, the pharmacist I worked for in Seattle who’s my mentor in my recovery program? He’s a lot more than a pharmacist and he didn’t think much of Brinkerhoff and his theories, and even less of his practice.”

“Oh. That doesn’t sound good. What specifically?”

“I don’t know the details but he met Brinkerhoff at a northwestern Wesen medical conference last year, and said Brinkerhoff was very impressed with himself, both gloating and secretive about some new impulse control treatment he was developing. Karel was concerned that maybe Brinkerhoff was experimenting with some of his patients and not necessarily in a sound and ethical way.”

“I don’t know about any of that but I’m sure as hell going to find out who did what to Larry. Whatever is going on here is deadly for all of us if it keeps up.”

“No kidding. Including any innocent people who get mauled when one of us loses control like that.” Gently she asked, “So you’re sure it was Larry?”

“He as much as admitted it just before he died, after he tore that thing out of his neck; he was still _woged_ then. He told us, ‘I didn’t mean to, I didn’t want to.’ Sounds like he couldn’t control himself and took off to be away from everybody in the woods, like they do. But those Bigfoot hunters were unlucky to get in his way.”

“Okay. Be careful, please? I’m going to call Karel and find out if he knows anything more about Brinkerhoff.”

“Yeah, I warned Nick to make sure he stays off any couches. Probably my personal prejudice about shrinks of whatever kind, but…”

“Well, I’m sure that’s good advice. Though I can’t imagine a Wesen psychiatrist analyzing a Grimm…unless the Grimm was captive and we’re talking Verrat and Royals again.”

Monroe shuddered. “Let’s not go there. I’ll call you if I find out anything else, but right now I have to clean up Larry’s blood in my kitchen.”

“Can I do anything? Do you want some company?” She’d never been to Monroe’s house but didn’t want to leave him alone and mourning with that sad and gruesome task.

“No, thanks…it’s been a hell of a day, and a long one. And I kind of need some time to process all of this, you know…and grieve for Larry. He was a good friend for a long time. And when he came to me for help, I couldn’t help him. But tomorrow I’m going to keep pushing until I find out who’s responsible and make this stop.”

“Maybe Nick can get something out of Brinkerhoff.”

“Yeah, I bet that’s going to be an interesting interview. I’ll probably be comparing notes with him tomorrow after I meet with my friend at Helvetia.”

“Have some of their famous fries and onion rings for me.”

“Will do.”

 

Monroe called Reynaldo right after he finished cleaning up the bloody mess in his kitchen and cleaned himself up after. The burly Drang-Zorn had just finished his shift and was on his way out to his truck in Helvetia Tavern’s dark parking lot.

“Hey, dude, it’s been awhile,” Monroe said when Reynaldo answered. “You going to be around tomorrow, or are you off?”

“I’m covering lunch shift in the bar. Group’s not meeting again till Wednesday night, though, you know, usual time.”

“I kinda want to talk to _you_ about something.”

Reynaldo looked around the parking lot. A few late dinner patrons were strolling back to their cars engrossed in their own conversations. “Our kind of something…personal, then. You having trouble? Talk to Doc Kramer yet?”

“Not that kind of trouble, not me. But something’s going on with some of our guys and I think it’s better if we talk in person.”

“Sounds serious. Sure. Can you come by mid-afternoon, after the lunch crowd? We can talk privately awhile then.”

“ _Mañana_ _,_ then.”

“You got it.”

 

The next day right after his lunch meeting with Reynaldo, Monroe related the gist of their conversation, minus certain personal details, on the phone to Rosalee from the Helvetia Tavern parking lot just before he called Nick about the two other Wildermanner who were taking Brinkerhoff’s “miracle” cure.

 

Reynaldo dressed and looked like an effective bouncer and certainly could be when called upon. He’d poured them both a couple of sociable whiskies and practiced his pool shots while they talked in the Tavern’s barroom, separate from the main restaurant and its late lunchtime crowd, before he put in Monroe’s usual order, the only entree on the menu he could eat, a Gardenburger. And what Monroe found out was deeply disturbing.

The graying but formidable Reynaldo could hardly believe what had happened to Larry McKenzie. “Shot – saw it on TV last night.”

“When was the last time you heard from him?”

“Here, about three months ago.”

“How’d he seem?”

“Well, to tell you the truth, it was kind of weird. We’re all hanging out, sharing stories, doin’ the steps – you know the drill. Larry walks in, no one’s seen him in weeks, sits down with this big smile on his face and he says, ‘I’m cured’. Not ‘improving’, not ‘getting better’ – _cured_. Said he’d found a foolproof way to solve our problems overnight.”

Disturbed, Monroe had asked skeptically, “So what is this ‘miracle cure’, some kind of drug, or…?”

“Didn’t say. He was like a religious convert. All I know is he was going to see Brinkerhoff and he wasn’t the only one. You remember Alan Evercroft, Dan Murray?”

“Yeah, sure. Good guys.” And Monroe knew both were Wildermanner like Larry.

“They were all excited about Larry’s new deal. They went to see Brinkerhoff, too, and that’s the last I saw of them. I guess it must have worked.” Then Reynaldo added in a darkly joking tone, “Either that or they don’t like me any more.”

“So how come _you_ didn’t go see Brinkerhoff?” Monroe was sure he already knew the answer and his old friend and fellow traveler did not disappoint.

“Please. Quick fixes aren’t my style.” Reynaldo straightened up from his pool shot. “Besides, who says I want to be cured _all_ the time?”

Their eyes met with deep understanding and they shared feral smiles; Monroe laughed shortly in appreciation.

“I just want to be able to _control_ the urges, you know?” Reynaldo said.

Monroe had answered honestly, “Don’t we all.”

 

Thinking maybe it was too much over the top for the not-so-violently inclined, he decided not to tell Rosalee Larry’s very Wildermanner joke that he and Reynaldo had shared while remembering their dead friend: “What’s the best way to help a friend stop drinking? Tear his arms off!”

She was as disturbed as Monroe at what he’d learned from Reynaldo. “Miracle cure? Like, a cure for the impulse problems, excessive _woging_ , or…?”

Leaning against his yellow Bug in the Helvetia Tavern parking lot and looking around at the rolling green fields and farms in all directions, he told her, “More like a cure for being Wesen, sounded like; relief from ever having to deal with the Other’s urges, you know? But instead Larry lost control of himself and control of his _woge_. Some miracle. I’m about to call Nick with all this, and then follow up with the other two guys who were seeing Brinkerhoff; I know them from the group thing here.”

 

And from there things cascaded from very bad to much worse.

When Monroe called with the names of Brinkerhoff’s other two patients, Nick told him they’d already found Alan Evercroft dead at a crime scene with the same kind of drug pump in his body that Larry’d had.

Horrified, Monroe told Nick, “Whatever Brinkerhoff is giving these guys is definitely not helping!”

“We haven’t linked Brinkerhoff to the drug pumps yet but even if we do, those ingredients are not illegal.”

That had an all too familiar ring to it; neither was Jay or any number of other substances known to affect some Wesen very differently from humans. “That doesn’t mean they’re not bad for us!”

Nick said, “I’ll call you when I know something,” and clicked off before Monroe could ask what ingredients they’d found so he could consult with Rosalee.

Still standing in Helvetia Tavern’s parking lot, Monroe tried calling Dan Murray only to find out from Dan’s brother that he’d died two days before after also violently losing control, destroying his third floor apartment and then making a suicidal leap to his death.

Despite what he’d told Reynaldo earlier about personally having no problems with his control, Monroe felt the boiling rage rise inside him and began to see red.

_Three_ good men dead, all of them having valiantly and successfully fought the good fight within themselves for years; friends who shared his own struggles and shared their support, now destroyed by this rogue doctor’s ‘miracle cure’ gone wrong.

He knew right now that he wasn’t safe to drive, and not because of the two whisky shots he’d had with Reynaldo before lunch.

He called Rosalee again.

“Did Nick have anything new?” she asked while ringing up a sale for some green tea, mistletoe extract and Tincture of Prickle Poppy for a graying Luisant-Pêcheur gentleman who was having trouble keeping up with his newly frisky menopausal wife’s libido.

“Not good. Two more of my Helvetia friends are dead. Both Wildermanner, both Brinkerhoff patients like Larry.”

“Oh, no….I’m so sorry!” Her customer turned away with his purchase and a pleased, secretive smile. She was free to listen to Monroe’s terrible news.

“And they all had some kind of drug pump imbedded in them. Nick said the ingredients weren’t anything illegal but he didn’t say exactly what they found. Do you know of any formulas for, I guess you’d call it _woge_ suppressant? Especially anything that would have to be injected or in some time-released formula through an implant? Something that could completely stop us from _woging_.”

“No, I’ve never heard of anything like that. If it existed I’m sure every apothecary would know about it; the news would spread like wildfire. That would be major.” It could certainly help Wesen with serious control issues or conditions like the Umkippen; but when she thought about it, “It could also be very dangerous to shut down something so deeply genetically programmed with no outlet at all.”

“Yeah, so much for Larry’s ‘overnight’ cure. Looks like somehow it backfires and they totally lose it instead of the Wesen part being, like, deactivated.” Then, her current animosity toward Nick in mind, he warned, “Ah, don’t be surprised if Nick calls you about what Brinkerhoff might be using.”

“If he could find out exactly what was in the pump implants maybe I can figure it out…or better yet, call Karel. I talked to him earlier but he didn’t know anything else about Brinkerhoff.”

“Yeah, well, maybe Nick can find out from their police lab. But for now, somebody’s got to stop Brinkerhoff from doing this to anybody else if he hasn’t already.”

“That’s not going to be easy if he’s treating them with something that isn’t illegal.”

“Not exactly mainstream approved medical practice, either,” Monroe said darkly.

“Yeah, well…that’s what I do around here on daily basis, remember?”

“But you’re not killing my friends.”

She went still at the ominous tone in his voice. “Monroe…you need to talk to Nick about this. If he can’t stop this as a cop…he needs to do it as a Grimm. For everyone’s sake.”

“ _Someone_ has to stop it, one way or another. And if Nick can’t, or won’t… _I will_.” With that he ended the call, leaving Rosalee very afraid of what he had in mind.

For the first time in weeks, she put her anger aside and called Nick.

He didn’t answer his phone. She left a message asking him to call back, it was urgent but he didn’t respond, leaving her frantic with worry. It was a long, anxious night with neither Monroe nor Nick responding to her calls.

 

To Rosalee’s immense relief, Monroe called her the next morning after he’d met a worried Nick for coffee before work and found out what had really happened the night before, after his own vindictive and misguided confrontation with the unhinged, self-medicating psychiatrist at Brinkerhoff’s office.

He decided not to tell Rosalee that he’d gone there alone to stop the man responsible for his friends’ deaths, along with the unfortunate people Larry and Alan had killed when their medication backfired – only to find himself on the losing side of a vicious brawl with the crazed, _woged_ Wildermann by the time Nick and Hank had arrived.

Brinkerhoff had literally been a Wildermann on steroids, he would find out later. He was still sore in places from that fight.

“Did you see the late news last night?” he asked. “Or the recap this morning?”

“What happened at the theatre?” She sipped her morning coffee, watching two elderly ladies on the far side of the shop perusing the selection of teas. They were Genio Innocuo so unlikely to be shoplifters. “Yes, it’s all over the media, but it’s not making much sense…except for what we know about Brinkerhoff.”

“Yeah, turns out he was using his ‘miracle cure’ on himself, too – with the same result as his guinea pig patients,” Monroe said, voice furious; he felt his eyes flare red just talking about it. “But Nick said they found out Brinkerhoff only ordered four of those pump devices, and now everyone who’d had one is dead. So I guess it’s over…at a terrible cost. My three friends’ families are shattered; bad enough losing Larry and Dan, but Alan Evercroft had a wife and kids.”

“Ohhh, that’s awful! But that explains the news reports.” She wondered even more what Brinkerhoff had brewed up for that treatment.

The mad doctor’s uncontrollable _woged_ rampage had spilled out that night onto the downtown streets and into the Portland Center for Performing Arts, bursting in on people gathered for drinks in the atrium and commencing to commit mayhem on terrified locals who were already steeped in the media’s Bigfoot scare, then grabbing a woman and dragging her King Kong style into the catwalks above the Winningstad Theatre.

Nick, Hank and Wu managed to rescue the woman but Hank had to shoot the deranged and violent Brinkerhoff when the Wildermann attacked Nick up in the theatre’s loft. The _woged_ doctor had pitched over the balcony onto rows of seats on the main floor below, mortally wounded.

Some of that was reported on the news, though without the involved officers’ names, as were witness accounts saying the perpetrator was wearing an animal costume mask during the attacks.

“Bigfoot Frenzy Fizzles” the captions read on the televised reports.

“Yeah, Nick met me for coffee early this morning to talk over the whole thing. There were some…complications.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised,” Rosalee said dryly. “A thing like this, happening out in public….”

“Sergeant Wu was there and saw some of it but things were happening fast and it was dark up there; Wu rescued the woman Brinkerhoff dragged into the loft along with him when he went all ape-shit at the theatre, so he was busy with her when the rest went down.”

Monroe took a deep breath before launching into the next part, the reason for Nick’s early morning coffee meet.

“The big problem now, is…Hank got a real good up close and personal look at Brinkerhoff _woged_ while they were fighting him; he’s the one who shot the Doc when ‘Bigfoot’ was attacking Nick. And when they ran down to the main floor, Brinkerhoff was broken but not dead yet. They were standing right over him, so Hank got a _long close_ look at him all fanged-out and furry before Brinkerhoff croaked and morphed back into his human self.”

Rosalee was horrified. “Oh, my god, that’s not good!”

“Yeah, especially since I’d just run over Hank _woged_ a couple days ago when the search dogs they’d sent after Larry were chasing me in the forest just down from my house.”

_“What?”_

“Yeah, with everything else going on I forgot to tell you about that part. I was wearing Larry’s shirt, you know, confusing his scent trail and decoying them away from my place; Larry was still _woged_ on my couch and Nick was with him when Hank showed up on _my street_ with the dogs and their handlers, hot on Larry’s trail.” Monroe closed his eyes, seeing it all play through his memory; it _had_ been a very intense couple of days.  

“So anyway, after I’d run their pack out far enough to turn around and, you know, _let ‘em have it_ and spook them away, Hank was right there, by himself when I came through the trees after the dogs ran off. I mean, I was already moving fast and hit Hank pretty hard – he had his gun raised and I didn’t want to give him a chance to shoot me.   He was on his back looking up kind of dazed, but I could tell he was seeing something that really weirded him out.”

“Oh, boy….” Rosalee suddenly had a headache. She put her coffee mug aside; more caffeine certainly wouldn’t help.

“Soooo, last night Nick tried to explain away what they saw happen with Brinkerhoff while they were there standing over his body – after he’d, you know, reverted. He said Hank was really freaked, breathing hard, staring down at Brinkerhoff, and kept demanding, ‘Did you see it? His face – it was different, it changed,’ and stuff like that. This time he just blew off Nick’s attempts to convince him he hadn’t really seen anything strange.”

“This… _this_ could really push him over the edge.” _As if poor Hank hadn’t been through enough already with Adalind’s ‘Death For Love’ potion_.

“Yeah, and now he’s real twitchy, on edge, not sleeping; he’s living on OTC speed basically, you know, the stuff kids use for all-nighter study sessions…for all the good that does for memory retention.”

“But these aren’t memories he needs to retain. If he does….”

“I know – Nick’s partner’s about to really lose it. And…there’s not a thing I can think of that we can do to help.”

“In your case,” Rosalee advised, “best you just stay away from him. You don’t want to trigger anything that makes him put you together with whatever knocked him down in the forest.”

“No kidding. I’m thinking I need to stick around home for a while, lay low. I’ve got a lot of work to catch up on, and I don’t need to be out and around courting more trouble. All too often it comes and finds me at home anyway…in the form of a particular Portland detective.”

“Well, I’ll miss seeing you but I’m sure you’re right.”

“Me, too. Our movie night seems like eons ago already.”

Rosalee had to smile at that. “That was fun. I’m not used to hanging out like that any more, either. It’s nice to just relax and enjoy for a change, and not have to be on my guard about anything slipping – you know.”

“Do I ever,” he breathed, that awkward dinner with Juliette still fresh in mind.

“Well, call me if there’s any news about Hank, or if you just want to talk. I’ve got to go, my ladies are coming over to buy their tea.”

“Sure thing.” Monroe sighed with relief when that call was over; it was a lot to discuss and was still a lot to process. He felt better having told Rosalee…most of it…and she hadn’t said anything negative about Nick this time, which was a good change. But now they were both deeply worried about his partner’s Wesen-challenged sanity.

 

An unexpected parcel arrived at the Spice Shop in the afternoon mail; its postage was from the U.K. Rosalee was mystified when she examined the box. Its return address was in Yorkshire: “Taylor’s of Harrogate – Family Tea Merchants Est. 1886.”

“I didn’t order any tea from Yorkshire,” she said aloud to herself. “What’s this?”

When she opened it, there were several large boxes of black tea blends from that venerable company. She had always been fond of their teas, especially the Yorkshire Gold, and that blend was well represented in this shipment.

There was no invoice or packing slip with it. She took out the boxes, making sure there wasn’t something else, something Wesen, hidden in with the innocent boxes of tea sachets and tins of loose tea so as to escape notice should the carton be inspected by Customs on either side of the Atlantic; some suppliers of the more esoteric and illicit apothecary supplies would mask their shipments that way.

She opened each box, smiling as she inhaled the fragrant tea scents and finding that she was suddenly craving a nice, steaming mug of Yorkshire Gold. But each box only contained the tea that its label promised…until the third box of Yorkshire Gold. There was a small note tucked in among the teabags.

Brow furrowed, she drew it out and unfolded it. On its plain white paper was written in a hand she recognized, “Grand holiday in Brigadoon, rucksack on my back. Nice to get away. Best to our mutual friend. Be well, be happy.”

She read it again, tears of relief and happiness welling in her eyes. “Ian….”

The cryptic message was clear to her. He was in the wind, on the move…as in the mythical Scottish town of Brigadoon that only winked into existence for one day a century, then vanished again. “Our mutual friend” could mean Monroe…or it could mean the Grimm who’d let him go or “allowed” him to escape, with the “rucksack on my back” holding what he needed to keep ahead of the Verrat and the Royals.

That explained why she couldn’t find out where he was immured in the justice system here. With a pang she also realized that Nick hadn’t felt able to trust her or Monroe with the knowledge that he’d sent Ian on his way instead of arresting him. Or perhaps he’d felt that information was too dangerous for them, and him.

_“Be well, be happy.”_ With that benediction, he was encouraging her to build and live her new life and find new love, a life that no longer included him except as a part of her heart’s history and their past as secret allies in the struggles of the Resistance.

Mindful now of her family’s long history engaged with the Laufer…and, differently, with the Council, she sat thinking on the sofa under the obscured sidewalk-facing windows in the shop’s workroom while she waited for her kettle to boil, her favorite teapot waiting with its measure of Ian’s gift tea.

_Are we past allies necessarily? Is that what I want…need to be now? Can I, should I turn my back on those connections?_

She realized that Ian was likely not the only one of Freddy’s or even her parents’ contacts who could land here needing and expecting help of the kinds Freddy provided. But the idea of exposing herself and everyone close to her to the threats and dangers that entailed made her shiver deeply.

_I guess I’ll just have to wait and see. Depends on the circumstances_. But she decided not to discard those potential contacts Freddy had left for certain illicit services.

Reginald was gone, poor man. At least he’d tried to warn her, and indeed she’d found his note just seconds before Waltz had come up behind her with his gun so that she knew what she was up against.

_I wonder if any of his family will take over his business…the cameras and perhaps that other sideline, if he wasn’t acting alone and his family, like mine, were also committed to the Laufer_ cause. She resolved to quietly keep track of what became of the camera shop and to covertly find out more about his relatives and if they might also be in the secret Resistance network.

_And if not, I need to find others who can provide quality new identity documents. I might even need to have some ready for myself, if things should suddenly get desperate here_.

She wondered briefly if her mother still had fake passports and running money on hand in case anyone with ill intent tracked her down in Medford, retired though she was supposed to be. _It’s not as if you can just retire from that kind of history and expect to live like it never happened_ ….

The tea was nearly finished steeping when the shop door chimes jingled and Monroe came through carrying takeout bags that smelled wonderfully of Thai food. Since she wasn’t in the main shop he turned immediately and came through the blue doors to the workshop/treatment area.

“Surprise! I was too restless to stay home after all. Hope you haven’t eaten yet.”

“Perfect timing,” she said, smiling as he deposited the food bags on the broad worktable. “And, thank you!”

“I’ve been craving some Tom Kah…hope you don’t mind if it has tofu instead of meat. There’s Mee Krob, black rice, and I got us each some Pad Thai, yours with chicken.”

“It smells delicious, and the tea is just now ready. But before we dig in, there’s something I want to show you.” She patted the sofa next to her and he came over to sit, curious.

“This came in the mail today, and it’s not something I ordered.” She indicated the carton of tea. “It’s from Yorkshire, according to the postage and the shipping label.”

He lifted out a box to examine and sniffed it. “So it’s all really tea? Can’t you get this brand here, too?”

“Yes, to both. But this was hidden in one of the boxes.” She handed him the note and watched his expression while he read it.

“ _Brigadoon?_ Really? Better not miss the daily mail there, or your package is gonna wait a long time.” But as he considered the rest his smile faded. After a moment he nodded quietly, a different smile following. “So Ian’s loose.”

“I don’t know any other way to read it.”

“ ‘Our mutual friend’…is that me, or Nick?”

“Could go either way, but I’m thinking he means Nick let him get away…or even helped.” She gave a deep sigh. “I guess you were right, you know him better than I do. But he sure isn’t telling us about it.”

“Probably because he let a murder suspect go, you think? Not exactly police protocol. Just saying….”

“Well, he did get the real murderer; Ian took care of that. Nick just didn’t understand that his legal system wasn’t set up to prosecute and imprison a foreign Verrat enforcer of Waltz’s caliber.”

“I can’t say I was the least bit displeased to see that monster dead. That’s one body I was happy to help dispose of.” Monroe’s face darkened at the memory of Waltz with his gun trained on Rosalee.

She reached over and squeezed his hand. “We did good. It passed their CSU investigation.”

“Yeah, well, apparently Nick’s Captain also wasn’t displeased that Waltz turned up dead. Nick told me they didn’t expend a lot of resources looking for alternative explanations to what our ‘crime scene’ indicated. Especially with Nick’s additions.”

“So…at some point soon, I owe Nick that apology.” She reached for cups on the low table in front of them and poured them both some tea. They clinked the china cups together in a toast before they sipped the robust Yorkshire blend.

“Yeah, well, with what’s brewing with Hank,” Monroe said, watching Rosalee’s amused wince at his intentional choice of words, “I’m sure you’re going to be hearing from him soon looking for help.”

That was to prove all too true that very night – but it wouldn’t be about Hank.

 

That evening Nick showed up at Monroe’s house with copies of surveillance photos he’d found on a murdered private investigator’s camera that day, photos of Captain Renard, Hank and Nick…and of Monroe, from their coffee meeting that morning and on earlier days.

And just hours before, their elusive suspect Akira Kimura had trashed Captain Renard’s condo, killed his housekeeper and brutalized Renard for hours demanding the accursed Coins of Zycanthos before making his escape when Sergeant Wu and another officer showed up to check on their Captain after Renard failed to answer Nick’s warning phone call about the photos.

But it would go from bad to much, much worse when Nick and Juliette showed up on Monroe’s doorstep even later that night with a crisis of their own…and Juliette suddenly collapsed into a coma in Monroe’s living room.

Adalind had struck again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Helvetia Tavern in Hillsboro is a real business, and the Gardenburger truly was the only entree Monroe could eat ("the usual" he says); check out their Facebook page! The bar side of the tavern looks exactly like it did in Monroe & Reynaldo's scenes. If you go there, be sure you go HUNGRY, their portions are enormous! 
> 
> I visited last June on my Grimm pilgrimage to Portland...but not on a Wednesday so the wieder group wasn't there meeting. Reynaldo wasn't working that day either, though I think he'd be too scary to just chat up as a tourist. The series didn't say what kind of Wesen he is but I got Drang-Zorn vibes, so.... ;)

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't resist having Rosalee muse about what might take over the Spice Shop's space when she shut it down -- a bicycle shop, perhaps. At the actual physical location of the Spice Shop in Portland, the tenant is a VERY nice bike shop with Grimm-friendly staff who shared stories about Grimm's filming there with this tourist in June 2017. Also, the adjacent restaurant on Couch St. that we saw in "Organ Grinder", the "Mountain View Diner" where Nick & Juliette took Hansen & Gracie to eat, is actually a Subway sandwich franchise. Oregon Leather is across the street, which we glimpsed in "You Don't Know Jack" & other episodes; they had Grimm costume sketches posted inside, a gift from when Grimm's costumers shopped there!


End file.
